


Practice to Deceive

by AnonymousMink



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: A/B/O, ABO, AND MUCH MUCH MORE!, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Although there is one smut scene for posterity, Assassins In Love, Biting, Brainwashing, Claiming, Examines the real world implications of an arbitrary genetic division in soceity, F/M, Not porn, Omega Verse, Undercover Missions, a terrible grip of Russian spy craft, also hand holding, alternate adaption of TWS, not kinky BUT, seriously though if you’re looking for porn this isn’t it, spies in love, winterwidow - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-13 10:27:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21492823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousMink/pseuds/AnonymousMink
Summary: Natalia Romonova had achieved the impossible before her twentieth birthday. The only Omega to graduate from the Red Room in its history, she is insulted to learn her handlers have decided to pair her up with another operative for her next mission. AnAlpha.Despite her misgivings though, there’s something about the enigmatic soldier they send her that she can’t dismiss. A connection that will survive even when everything else in her life seems determined to fall apart completely.—-((Prompt fic that starts pre-movie and runs through TWS, examines the implications of a society arbitrarily divided by genetics and (of course) the enduring power of true love. Has comic elements mixed in with the MCU canon.Whilst it’s set in an ABO universe, and contains one mature scene, this is in no way a kink/smut fic - sorry guys!))
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 110
Kudos: 116
Collections: Marvel Trumps Hate 2019





	1. Natalia Romonova & Soldat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Juulna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juulna/gifts), [grliegirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grliegirl/gifts).

> Well hello there! Looks like I’m back at it again with another fic - this time however for a very good cause! Thank you so so much to Juulna for bidding on my MTH auction and requesting this story, and to Grliegirl who this is gifted too! You have both been so incredibly generous and kind - I truly hope you enjoy it. 💜
> 
> Thanks too to my beloved DenseHumboldt for reading everything I’ve written for this story in advance and keeping me constantly inspired and motivated to keep writing! You are my word rock! 💜

_  
Her name was Natalia Alianovna Romanova and she was watching Grandmother work. _

She wasn’t _ her _ grandmother, of course, Natalia didn’t have family, but that was what the old woman was called and she had never thought to question it.

Rolling her neck, she found her eyes drawn back time and again to the old woman’s hands. She was fascinated by them. They were gnarled and spotted, ropes of blue veins bunching beneath her skin as she tied off the silken cord she was working with. 

She was the oldest person Natalia had ever seen in the academy. Everyone knew the dancers here did not grow old.

“Scissors,” Grandmother held out one of those same hands, her palms creased almost to the bone. 

“Yes, granny,” Natalia rose to fetch them from the side. They were large and old fashioned, cast from heavy iron with vines decorating their handles. Not well balanced but sharp. _ Incredibly _ sharp.

“Natasha,” Grandmother chastened, fingers flexing impatiently at her, “today please, then back to your stretches.”

“Of course, granny.” She handed them over before dutifully returning to the makeshift barre in Grandmother’s sitting room.

“Thank you,” the old woman nodded, adjusting the small circular glasses she wore as she checked the length of silk she’d stretched from the spool, “yes, this should do.”

The scissors snipped and the silence filtered back in. That was Grandmother’s way, she always spoke in her own time, when she was ready to. Whatever the reason was she had summoned Natalia, it would become clear when she was ready for it to and not a moment before. 

Natalia considered it as she stretched, each familiar form its own sort of meditation as she let her mind work over the strange meeting. Perhaps she had new engagement in mind for her. Something important, something where she could really stretch her skills. Or maybe it was a follow up to her last performance in Prague, notes maybe, although she thought she’d done well that day. 

_ Hips in, _ she reminded herself unnecessarily as she bent and flexed, searching her memory for the slightest slip she might have made to cause her mentor’s displeasure. A wrong move or an awkward turn, _ movements clean. Smile. _

“They are sending you a dance partner, Natasha.”

Natalia didn’t stumble. Her back held perfectly straight even as her stomach twisted inside of her, angry heat washing down the back of her neck as she swept into a grand-pliè from fifth and back up into a leg extension. 

Her old dance mistress had always stressed the importance of appearing as the swan did. Graceful and unruffled to all who saw, even as her legs paddled furiously beneath the water where no one could see.

Flinching once earned you the cane, flinching twice and you wouldn’t dance again.

“I don’t need a partner.” She said, the fury locked tightly behind her teeth as she smiled placidly at her reflection, “my record is-”

“Impeccable, yes, child I know,” Grandmother’s fingers were deceptively nimble as she braided the cord, sighing indulgently, “but you are a young woman and worse an omega, you know they will never see beyond it.”

That word haunted her.

_ Omega. _

It meant lesser. _ Weak_. Something that needed protecting or shepherding or _ claiming. _It meant she was an outlier in a world run by alphas. 

Her tutors, her trainers, even the other girls she had trained with at the academy had been overwhelmingly alpha. Strong, powerful creatures, each a perfect candidate for the prima position. A star in the making.

Only they weren’t.

They were _ weak _ and Natalia had proved it. No one had expected her to make it through when they didn’t. No one had expected her to fight tooth and nail for her place, to knock down each and every one of her competitors until only she remained. But she _had_.

She was the only graduate and it still wasn’t enough.

“That’s not fair.” She said as she finished the set and stepped back from the barre. Stupid words. _Childish_ words that were beneath her now.  
  
Still, she said them anyway. 

“No,” Grandmother agreed, not looking up from where she was tying perfect knots in the end of the cord, “but that is how it is, you will always be overlooked by them. Here, it is finished.”

Setting her basket aside Grandmother held the carefully crafted bracelet out to her. It was made from red silk long enough to be wrapped twice around her wrist, the circular clasp wide enough to slip a thumb through on either side.

Natalia stretched the braclet between her hands, testing the weight and tension. 

“It is perfect, granny,” she said quietly, eyes scanning the length. The same cold acceptance she had worked so hard to achieve filtering back in at last. 

“Don’t look so glum, child,” Grandmother grinned with broken teeth, hauling herself up from her armchair, “no one will ever see you, Little Spider, so they will never see you coming.”

She was right, they _ would _ never see her coming. 

Spirit lightening Natalia nodded, holding her wrist up and letting the old woman fasten the bracelet in place for her. 

“Thank you, Granny,” she adjusted it with a genuine smile, “this will make a fine garrotte for my next mission.”

“That’s my girl, just don’t use it on your new partner,” she huffed out a wheezing laugh, black eyes twinkling knowingly, “not unless you really have too.”

—-

The handlers they had sent were both alphas, and both men. 

Of course they were. 

Natalia fought not to bare her teeth as she moved to greet them. Did they think she couldn’t see how they looked at her when she entered the room? The patronising brow lift, the narrowed eyes and leering smiles. 

Didn’t they know she had been taught to read faces at the same time she learnt her letters?

She forced herself to smile, hiding her tension behind her back with folded hands. The handlers were people and people were fallible, the cause was not. 

Her purpose was still pure.

“It is the Spider,” the komandir greeted her with shiny white teeth, clapping his hands together. They weren’t calloused like hers, they had never known real work. “I did not think you would be so young.”

“I am old enough, I assure you,” she nodded, her smile skin deep as she scanned the group on instinct. Noting every weakness, every way she could take them down if she had to. Aloud she said, “I hear you have brought me a new dance partner, komandir?”

“Ah yes, the _ soldier,_” he stepped back, pushing forward the figure that had been lurking behind them. The one that had been hardest for her to read. He was a towering beast of a man even with his shoulders hunched in on himself, but he did not wear the same outward sense of threat the others didn’t. Still and silent in a way she wasn’t expecting, “you are a lucky girl, he is our best. _ Soldat _, meet the Spider”

She saw the Soldier’s nostrils flare, his head tilting as if he was stretching to find her scent as he assessed her with pitch-dark eyes. She recognized the look. They had clipped her scent glands during her graduation ceremony, leaving her with enough to tease but never to take. A thousand teeth could sink into her skin and not one would claim ownership of her for more than a few days.

It made her more useful that way. 

She turned his stare back against him, finding him just as unreadable up close. He was an alpha undoubtedly but his scent was muddied beneath the others. Not the hard-musk of the handlers, bristling as they were with self-superiority and overpriced cologne, but something lighter. More _ unsure._ Cold air and metal.

Outwardly she bowed her head, her eyes never leaving his face as she said, “I look forward to serving with you, Soldat.”

He only nodded silently in return. His Cupid’s bow lips fixed in a line that seemed glued shut.

“Ah ah,” the komandir said, stepping between them with a sly grin as he turned to his partner, “not so fast young one, first we must see if you can hold your own against him. What say you, comrade? Shall we see them dance first?”

The other overbearing alpha nodded, his eyes sparking with a viciousness that set her teeth on edge. They were expecting her to fall easily, to prove herself exactly what they thought.

_Weak._

They were wrong.

“Of course, comrades,” she nodded easily, a familiar rush of adrenaline washing through her veins like a drug as her gaze flicked back to the silent man, “whatever you think is best.”

“Excellent. Well then, Soldat?” The komandir at least seemed to share his contempt between them both. Speaking to them both as if they were dogs trained to fight on command.

Perhaps they were.

“Ready to comply, komandir.” The soldier said, his voice surprising her. It was deep and still, flavoured with the barest hint of an accent she couldn’t immediately place. 

Inhaling deeply she met his gaze, it was time to prove herself. _ Again_.

—-

_ His name was Soldier and he was ready to comply. _

His mission parameters were set. Fight the woman, win, but leave no permanent damage. 

No death.

He could not remember the last time it had happened, he could not remember a lot of things. There was, he knew, a time before. A sucking black void in the back of his mind he had long since learned not to look at. Looking at it was dangerous. Looking at it _ hurt. _

It was better to focus on now. On the weight of his fist as he swung it at her. If she seemed too young to fight him he didn’t dwell on it, this was his mission. He would complete it.

And besides, she was good.

Her movements were fluid, fast, using her small stature to her advantage. Each strike she landed sharp and true as he reassessed the level of strength he’d need to disable her. She was young and defensive but her core was made of steel, taking a blow better than men twice her size.

She struck hard a true, a pressure point at his collarbone that would have taken down any man. Any man but him. Her expression changed, a flicker of pain and confusion flitting across her features as her fingers struck the metal they’d worked beneath his skin.

It was an unfair advantage perhaps, but that didn’t matter either. He took her stumble in stride, fastening his hand around her throat. The joints and servos whirring as he closed it to just the right degree. She struggled, feet kicking sharply at his chest as he lifted her into the air. Fighting to free herself even when it was clear she had lost.

An admirable trait.

Her lips paled, eyes reddening, a familiar recolouration he had seen played out again and again as he crushed ever inwards.

“_Soldat_,” the voice of his master stopped him, “enough.”

Unfurling his fingers he released the gasping woman. Her eyes wild and furious as she fell to the ground. She was down for less than a second, springing up with a fractured gasp as she struggled for breath. Shoulders braced as if she might strike him again at any moment.

He steeled himself for it but then the komandirs were applauding and her attention whipped away from him.

“An excellent show,” his master clapped loudly, his eyes lingering on the woman longer than was necessary in the sudden silence of inactivity, “you will make a fine team indeed. Come, your mission awaits.”

He didn’t have time to contemplate the look, or the way the woman, the Spider as they called her, tensed under it. There was another mission.

“I would have won, _ Soldat _,” she said out of the corner of her mouth as they followed their leaders, “if you were not augmented, I would have won.”

“Possibly,” he replied, following her footsteps as they left the room. Something rose from the blackness that haunted him, an old saying about red headed women and fury he couldn’t quite remember.

It was better not to look.

Perhaps it would be better not to look at her either.

  
  



	2. Anastasia Chekova & Dimitri Blake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo guys! Okay so FAIR WARNING - this chapter deals with some of the harsh realities of being a woman in the spying world. The mature stuff is all handled off screen but it deals with Nat’s reaction to the seedier side of her job. 
> 
> If this isn't something you want to read maybe skip to the next chapter!

_   
Her name was Anastasia Chekova and she was a young Russian-American heiress enjoying the Moscow nightlife. _

At least she was trying to, it was difficult to compartmentalise sometimes. To keep her head in her cover with the Soldier staring her down from across the bar with his dark, still eyes.

No, not the Soldier,  _ Dimitri Blake _ , her bodyguard. 

He remained an enigma to her, no matter how many missions they ran together. She had learned early how to read what men wanted. Alphas wanted control, Betas wanted power, Omegas wanted respect. And when they looked at her she knew what they wanted from her too; to use her to further their goals, to bring her to heel for daring to be in the position she was, to rutt her like some common beast. 

She didn’t know what the Soldier wanted from her.

This was their fourth mission in eighteen months and, despite the continued mystery he presented, she had to admit they worked well together. He wasn’t given to conversation, which suited her fine, it was always the mission.  _ Just _ the mission. No posturing or power plays like the other alphas she’d worked with in the past, he moved quick and clean. 

She could appreciate that. And besides if having an Alpha at hand made the handlers feel better, so be it. She wasn’t so proud that she couldn’t see there was an advantage. 

Even if part of her was _still_ stinging at the fact he had bested her in combat.

It was the arm. 

She’d had a chance to look at it better during their past missions, a bulky metal thing. Segmented and shiny and preternaturally strong. If it had been a fair fight she would have destroyed him, she knew it in her bones. If she had the chance of a rematch she would find a way around his advantage, poison maybe, or Grandmother’s garrotte. There were always other ways to kill a man.

And speaking of killing men…

“You are incredibly beautiful you know,” Vladimir Rafikov leant further into her space at the crowded bar, pulling her focus back to the moment. The words were spoken in heavily accented English and accompanied by a cloud of stale tobacco smoke, “here we would say,  _ ‘krasotka. _ ’”

He was a beta playing at alpha, drenched in pheromone-laced cologne that might have fooled someone less observant. Or more drunk.

She was only acting the part.

“ _ Kra- kratoskah _ ,” she repeated stupidly, giggling as she tipped her head towards him as if he didn’t disgust her. A leering old man with greasy hair and a sweat stained shirt beneath his three thousand dollar suit, “did I say it right?”

He was the mark and she was meant to make him feel special. Men talked when they felt special, when they felt  _ superior.  _ So that’s what she would do.

“Nearly,” the man chuckled, “did you never learn your mother tongue?”

“Daddy tried to make me take lessons when I was a kid but I was never much of a student,” she wiggled her bar stool closer, the slinky black dress her cover wore riding up her hip in a calculated move, “he always talked about the old country but I never really got it, ya know? Until he passed away of course and then…” she let her face fall, her bottom lip quivering as she toyed with her glass distractedly, “I just wanna connect with my heritage now he’s gone. Do something he’d be proud of with my inheritance.”

“It’s completely understandable, Anastasia,” a clammy hand landed on her bare knee, the man’s sympathetic smile dying long before it reached his eyes, “He sounds like a good man, who raised an excellent daughter. He would be very proud of you I’m sure, our company has the true interests of Russia at its heart.”

Ha. 

Vladimir was a scion of the enemy, which enemy she didn’t need to know, only that they were a threat to her country. A threat seeking funding.

That was never a good thing. It was up to ditzy little Anastasia to find out exactly what it was they were working on without raising any suspicion. The soldier - _Blake - _was only there in case it all went wrong.

As if she hadn’t handled men twice Vladimir’s size and strength without breaking a sweat.

“I hope so,” she nodded tipsily, letting the strap of her dress dip down her shoulder as she bit at her lip, “can you tell me any more about your company though? You understand, I have to be  _ totally  _ careful about this stuff.”

“I’m sure your financial advisors will be able to explain it all to you,” he waved airily, signalling for another drink for her. A classy move considering how drunk she appeared to be, “But that is boring talk for such a beauty. Now you must tell me, how is it such a magnificent omega as yourself has not been claimed yet.”

Her smile stuck, every inch of her concentration going into maintaining the facade even as her insides boiled. It was the same knee jerk rush of anger she’d been trying to crush for years, pushing it down over and over again until it had calcified into a rock in the pit of her stomach. One that weighed down on her as she forced herself to twirl her hair through her fingers and bat her eyelashes. 

“I guess I’m just waiting for the right guy,” she demurred. The rage making way for a healthy shot of disappointment as she realised exactly how this evening would end.

She had thought she might escape it this time. That her charm might have been enough.

She was a fool.

“I rather think  _ he _ would be first in line,” Vladimir nodded to her bodyguard, using the movement as an excuse to lean in closer. His flat nose pressed close to her neck as he breathed her in in stale huffing breaths, “he looks at you so  _ intensely _ .”

Her breath caught as she looked up into Blake’s waiting eyes. It shouldn’t matter that he was watching, it shouldn’t matter if  _ anyone  _ was watching. This was what she had to do.

This was her  _ mission. _

But his eyes haunted her anyway, so still, so non-judgemental as he watched from the corner of the bar. His hands were tucked neatly behind his back as he stood to attention, his suit and gloves were black and his hair neatly combed. Clean. Professional. And yet even now there was something other about him. Something raw she didn’t want to acknowledge.

Swallowing hard she forced herself to pull a face for her  _ date’s  _ benefit _ ,  _ “ugh, he’s another inheritance from Daddy, like I’m not capable of taking care of myself? So annoying.” Rolling her eyes she forced a teasing smile, “I’m a big girl you know, I wanna make my own decisions about the business now and any…  _ business partners.” _

“Mmm a wise decision,” the hand on her knee slipped higher, “you know, now that I think about it there are some plans for my company’s expansion in my hotel room. Perhaps we could go over them together? If you don’t mind leaving your guard dog outside, of course.”

She forced herself to smile, meeting his tone with a seductive purr, “of course.”

—-

_ His name was Dimitri Blake and he had a body to guard. _

Her body.

This was how their missions went, they infiltrated, she stole what they needed with words or hands or smiles, he eliminated any threats. 

This was the longest they had spent together though, the longest he had been undercover. At least, he thought it was. It was hard to remember, to look back beyond a series of ingrained truths and muscle memories.

He’d always thought it was safer that way, that he  _ preferred _ it, but now he wasn’t so sure.

Dimitri Blake had crawled over his skin like a snake, sinking its teeth deep into his flesh until he forgot they weren’t a part of him. The voice he’d been given felt realer than his own, a New York drawl that sat easily on his tongue, and his mission...

Blake’s life, his purpose, was to guard Anastasia. Her father had gotten him out of serious trouble as a kid, had saved his life, given him a job and raised him up when no one else would. This was how Blake would repay him, by keeping her safe above all else.

That was why his stomach twisted when the arms dealer got too close to her. Why his blood began to race when the man stuck his face into her blood red hair and breathed her in, his flabby hands pawing at her legs beneath the bartop. 

It was  _ disrespectful _ . He was beneath her. 

Bile rose in the back of his throat as he paced after them from the bar. The scent of the man mixing with hers made him want to gag, the cocktail of fake pheromones and desperation suffocating her beneath its weight. It sat like a growl behind his teeth, growing stronger with every step until he thought his spine might snap from the tension when they finally stopped outside of the man’s door.

Nat-  _ Anastasia _ pulled herself away from groping hands, sashaying back towards him with a drunken stumble to her steps. Even with her heels on the top of her head barely met his shoulders, forcing her to tilt her head up as she spoke.

“I’m just gonna go and…” she looked over her shoulder with a knowing laugh, “talk  _ business  _ for a while. You stay out here, ‘kay?”

The drunken glaze in her eyes died the second they met his, replaced with determination that didn’t match her giggling tone. It was distant and sharp as she signaled him to back off with a look.

“I should sweep the room,” he offered, the words low in his own ears as he tilted his head down towards her. Something hot and heavy weighing in his gut as his eyes flickered back to the waiting mark. Conveying his distrust silently.

“So not necessary,” she snorted, gaze flashing as she insisted she could handle it, “just patrol the hallways or whatever. Make sure we’re not interrupted.”

He wanted to press the matter. He wanted to stop her from going into that room, even if he didn’t know why. Even if he told himself it was just the cover.

But he didn’t.

He followed orders, like he always did. Standing sentinel as she turned away from him, the door snapping shut behind her with a gun-shot finality. He was alone again, left with her voice still echoing in his ears and the scent of warm cinnamon and pine filling his head. 

She smelt like something he wanted to remember, even if it hurt. 

—-

_ Her name didn’t matter. She wasn’t a person, she was an instrument.  _

Her body was not her own, it belonged to the cause. To the country. It had been shaped and stretched and scarred into what it needed to be, what they told her to be, and she was proud to follow their orders.

She was proud. She was proud.

The words stuck in her head on a loop as she left the hotel room, she’d had to wait until Vladimir had tired himself out before making her move. The sound of his snoring grating into her skull as she took copies of what she needed on the camera in her necklace. A delicate little piece of technology that could have fooled the finest eye.

Not that Vladimir looked. He had been all groping hands and cold tongue. She shuddered, looking anywhere but at her shadow-guard as she led the way back to the suite they shared.

“Upload this,” she threw the pendant at him after the door had closed and they’d swept the room. Clean.

“Enough for extraction?” He asked, catching it easily. The sound of metal on metal clinking in the air where it struck his palm.

“Not yet,” she bit the words out from between her teeth, reaching for the mini bar and dragging it open. Determined not to feel ashamed that it hadn’t been enough. That she hadn’t been enough, “we need the operational information. I’m accompanying him to an office gala tomorrow, we should get it there.”

“Acknowledged.”

It wasn’t her body. She was proud. It wasn’t-

“Where is the Baikal?” She looked up sharply as she found the soda missing from the little refrigerator. It had been there when they checked in, she had made sure of it.

“I drank it.” 

“You  _ drank  _ it?” Fury whipped through her like a lightning strike, burning her up from within as she slammed the mini bar shut so hard it bounced open again.

“Yes,” he nodded, confusion creasing his usually emotionless face, “you don’t like it.”

She didn’t. She  _ hated  _ it, she had said as much when they’d been forced to stop at a gas station on the last mission and it had been the only drink in the cooler. Not that she thought he would remember.

“It’s disgusting,” she said as she closed the fridge door again, a fraction more gently this time as the fury melted into a bitterness she couldn’t face. She turned away from him as she added almost to herself, “but nothing else gets rid of the taste so well.”

“The taste of what?” 

The question stopped her in her tracks. 

He didn’t ask her questions, not about anything other than the mission. Not once. She didn’t ask him any either, it was how they worked.

He had broken their code and over something so stupidly obvious it made her stomach clench. 

“What do you  _ think,  _ soldat?” She wasn’t supposed to call him that during the mission but she did anyway, “The taste of a mission they’d never send you on. You are a man and an alpha after all. Watch the perimeter, I’m taking a shower.”

She didn’t wait for his reply, didn’t let herself notice the slow dawning realisation on his face. The shame or the understanding. It would just make her angrier.

Instead she shut herself in the bathroom and scrubbed herself until her skin was red raw and aching and the water had run cold. Draining the day away down the plug hole as she centred herself. Breathing deep and even until she could be herself again.

She was Natalia Romonova, she was Anastasia Chekova, she was the Spider, the weapon of her cause, the hope of her people.

And when she opened the door to the bedroom again two hours later it was to find the Soldier once more silent at his post, and three new cans of Balkai sitting silently on the bedside table.

She didn’t ask him where he’d gotten them.


	3. Natalie Mills & Steve Mills

_   
He was Soldat, but he wouldn’t be for long. _

He sat on the edge of another bed in another hotel in another country, pulling his boots on. Their cover had been changed last minute, the names they’d been given before they left burned and replaced with whatever was waiting for them in a thick brown envelope in his partners hands. 

He never knew how to think of her outside of their covers; Spider, Romanova, Agent,  _ Natalia _ . It was easier when there was another identity, it made her less permanent somehow. Less real.

Six months had passed since that night in Moscow, a new understanding seeming to settle between them, easy and unhurried. He knew things about her now he’d never had a chance to learn about anyone, things he didn’t even know about himself. What food she liked, what music, the way her nose scrunched when she was happy, or the fierce crease that formed between her brows when she slept. 

It made his skin itch to think about how comfortable he had become with her, a hollow void opening in the pit of his stomach every time his thoughts lingered on her. If was better not to have anything to remember after all, it would make his inevitable reset so much less painful. 

That way he wouldn’t know what he was losing. 

“Well?” He made himself ask as his thoughts got too heavy. She was staring at the slender sheaf of paper, her face perfectly still. The fact that she didn’t react to the information meant there was something to react to, “Comrade Romanova?”

It sounded so clunky when he said it. Stupid on his tongue as he dropped his eyes to his boots again.

“You can call me Nat, you know,” she said, heat flushing in his cheeks as he focused on tucking the ends of his laces away and not on her half smile, “it seems we will need to get used to a greater familiarity.”

He lifted his head as she held the sheet out to him, taking it from her as delicately as he could with his metal hand. He was all too aware of the damage it could wreak if he didn’t control it fully. 

They had made it to kill after all. The had made  _ him  _ to kill.

“A mated pair?” He read, eyes flicking quickly over the cover story. Absorbing it into his subconscious as he’d been trained too even as the words stuck in the back of his throat, “but-”

“ _ But _ that is the cover,” she said firmly, already reaching for the hem of her sweater and pulling it over her head. Her long red hair was ruffled by the motion, a moment of unguarded imperfection he wondered if anyone else ever got to see, “here, get it over with.”

He started back, eyes widening as she bared her throat to him.

“What do you mean?”

She blinked at him for a moment, seemingly lost for words as she stood there, her sweater dangling from one hand as she held her hair back with the other.

“Our cover? You need to mark me.”

“No.”

“What?”

“No.” He clenched his teeth together, fighting back the urge her words woke in him. A secret desire he had never let himself give shape to before. “I will not do it. There must be another way.”

No matter how sweet she would taste on his tongue, how much his chest tightened and his veins burned with the thought of it.

“I don’t understand,” it seemed she really didn’t, her brow scrunching as she dropped her hand awkwardly from her hair, “it is our mission, Soldat. This is what will sell it, besides it’s not permanent, you know that.”

He hated how she said that,  _ Soldat _ , like a name. It made him want more. More past, more present, more of whatever it was they’d stripped out of him. He wanted to be a man with a name instead of a machine with a designation.

And more than that… he didn’t want to be like  _ them.  _

He remembered all too well the soda can she kept in her bag on every mission, the drinks she hated and the touches she endured. He took a special pleasure in killing those men, perhaps he wasn’t meant to but he did anyway. It was a small comfort to know that at least if he wasn’t a man he couldn’t be like them.

“I will not be like the others,” he said, tucking his knives into his boots with the precision they had hardwired into him, trying to find comfort in the familiar action and failing, “I will not take from you like that.”

“ _ Soldat,”  _ there it was again, the name. Was he imagining the softness in her voice as she said it? The way her eyes creased in the corner when he looked up again, “You are too sweet for this work.”

_ Sweet _ ? He had never been sweet. He was death made flesh and metal, he was a machine, an instrument, he was…

“I have a choice,” she said, sitting beside him on the bed and making his heart lurch painfully. Her head tilting as she sighed, “I always have a choice. I choose to do what’s best for my people, for my cause, no matter the cost. But this… this really isn’t so much of a price to pay. This isn’t like the others,  _ you _ aren’t like them. I… trust you.”

His ribs felt like they were constricting around his lungs, pulse racing like he was going into battle as she bumped him with her shoulder. He couldn’t bear how much he wanted to believe her, to  _ claim _ her. He couldn’t bear the  _ fear  _ either.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said to his hands, throat tight as he looked at anything but her. 

“I know,” she was touching him, her fingers light against his arm. It was strange to feel it through the metal. Not a full sensation, not like skin on skin would be, but a phantom touch. The dream of one. “you won’t. It is just a little bite, that’s all.”

His stomach tightened, fire burning beneath his skin as he struggled to control himself. 

“I’ve never…” he looked at her at last. It was a mistake, she was so close to him, far too close, giving him permission to see her, scent her,  _ taste  _ her.

Cinnamon and pine. 

He didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve  _ her _ . It was another trick, another test, one he was doomed to fail. Then it would be back to the chamber, back to the reset… back to...

“I have,” the corner of her mouth twitched as she reached up to twist her hair away from her face again. Slowly this time like any sudden movement might scare him away, “too many times. Although never quite like  _ this _ .”

There was a laugh in her voice, reminding him again why she was so good at what she did. She had something about her, something beneath the steel and determination. A warmth that drew them in like moths.

He was far from immune to it, he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to be. The flames were better than the cold, even if they burnt.

“Move,” she shoved at his shoulders, turning to face him properly on the bed. One leg tucked beneath her as she waited for him to mirror her position, “good. Now you have to bite here, where the skin is softest.”

She tapped her fingers against her neck before reaching for his right hand, placing it against the spot she had shown. 

Skin on skin. 

Something inside of him surged, a repressed instinct that roared to life low in his gut. Saliva gathered on his tongue, teeth aching as he leant closer. Inhaling her by the lungful. 

“Look at that,” he heard her breath hitch, saw her pulse quickening in the hollow of her milk pale neck, “you’re a natural.”

There was a growl trapped in his throat, vibrating inside of him as she drew him closer and closer still. His muscles bunched beneath his skin, a hard rush of arousal shaming him even as it thrilled him, burning him alive as he lowered his head towards her neck. Unable to escape the scent of her.

—-

_ Her name was Natalia, her cover was… was… _

She couldn’t remember, couldn’t think, her head unforgivably clouded as he moved towards her. He was so uncertain, holding her carefully,  _ gently _ . Like she was precious. It made her heart thunder, swallowing around a suddenly dry throat as something animal flashed in his eyes.

Heat gathered low in her belly, breath catching as his breath blew warm across her suddenly hyper-sensitive skin. It had never felt like this before, not once. 

His teeth sank in and she heard herself gasp, outside of herself and in all at once as she fought back the moan threatening to break from her tongue. The desperate clench of her body as his mouth closed warm and wet against her neck.

He groaned against her skin, the sound vibrating through her as she clawed at his shoulders. Wanting to keep him there. It wasn’t a base claiming, not like the other men had been, no brute act of mastery. It was almost…  _ reverential _ .

The scent of him settled over her like a hint of woodsmoke, a subtle shift that didn’t make her stomach turn. A physical manifestation of the work they’d done together; the trust that had grown, however begrudgingly on her part at least, between them.

It was weak sentimentality but she clung to it anyway.

“See?” Her voice came out too husky, forcing herself to modulate her tone as she pulled away, “not so bad, was it?”

He looked up and her heart stopped beating entirely. His pupils were blown wide, something almost feral about him as he struggled for breath. It was the first time she’d ever seen him not in complete control of himself. 

And she had been the one to do it to him.

“ _ Nat…” _ he whispered, voice rough against her skin.

She couldn’t let him finish whatever he was about to say, it was too dangerous. 

Swallowing hard she dragged herself away, patting him firmly on the shoulder as she left.

“Well then, Soldat, we have a mission.”

The words were just as much for her benefit as his. For the first time in a long time she had almost forgotten herself. 

She had almost wanted more.

—-

_ Her name was Natalie Mills and she was honeymooning with her life mate. _

The streets pressed in on all sides, a thousand shades of grey blurred behind the endless sheets of rain. Cars honking as they splashed passed them on the sidewalk.

“I thought the weather would be better,” she said, American this time. Born in Ohio, home in Seattle. An engineer by trade and deeply in love, “Thats so stupid, right? Like, it’s  _ London,  _ of course it’s raining.”

“Well,” her mate wasn’t much of a talker but it made the words he said even more precious, “it’s not snowing.”

“I think I’d prefer snow,” she snorted, pushing further into his side under their shared umbrella and tucking her hand into the back of his jacket, “at least then we could snuggle properly.”

He blushed,  _ actually  _ blushed. Her heart picking up despite herself as she dragged her fingers along his back, feeling the familiar handles of every weapon hidden there as she ran her security check.

“You have to get used to touching me,” she whispered as she stretched up on her tiptoes in a show of kissing his cheek, “it’s our honeymoon, remember?”

It was easier now they were someone else, easier but not easy. She didn’t know why but something about him threw her. A weird, primal ache growing inside of her chest the longer she spent beside him. It thumped in time with her heartbeat, an electric rush of anticipation that jumped every time their skin met.

“How could I forget?” There was a heartbreaking hesitance as they stopped at a traffic light, his free hand reaching for her face. He pressed his gloved palm against her cheek, the metal cold and hard through the leather but no less gentle because of it. “Nat.”

“You old romantic,” she made herself laugh it off even as her breath caught, forcing herself to move as the green man started flashing, “come on then. Let’s get out of here, Steve.”

He stumbled, a split second flash of raw fear crossing his face as his hand crushed hers. Painfully tight even though it was distinctly human, she thought if it hadn’t been she might not have any fingers left at all.

“What is it?” She demanded quietly, adrenaline flooding her system at the sudden change in him. The cover pulled loose as she marched them across the road, her heart beating double time as she scanned the area for threats. 

An old couple by a red phone booth. A man in an overcoat lingering outside of a shop. A woman with a cigarette between her lips. Nothing that stood out. Nothing that explained the bloodless pallor of his skin or haunted look in his eyes.

“Steve,” he repeated the cover name to himself in a low whisper, almost as if he hadn’t heard her, “ _ Steve.” _

“ _ Soldat _ ?” She murmured, breaking the first rule of their cover as her stomach clenched. He had never stumbled on a mission, not once, even in the hotel room he’d pulled himself together after she’d invoked the mission.

This was different, he was spiralling and she didn’t know what to do. Forcing her face into impassivity she pulled him with her as she sought a place with better cover. High walls, no ears. Somewhere safe.

“I know that name,” he whispered, the blue in his eyes never brighter as they met hers as she dragged him into an alleyway. She almost didn’t recognise him in the low light, “I  _ know _ it.”

“From where?” She asked, the umbrella had slipped, rain drenching them as she breathed hard. Scanning her memories for a Steve or Steven or Stephen or  _ anything  _ remotely similar in the organisation and coming up blank.

He looked lost.  _ Afraid.  _ His chest rising and falling in unsteady beats as he stared down at her.

_ “I don’t know.” _

—-

_ His name wasn’t Steve. But someone’s was. _

The blackness seethed in the back of his mind, writhing and angry. The void became a beast, thrashing and fighting against him even as he tried to fight it, to chain it back down as his skull threatened to split down the middle. 

The pain was almost unbearable, an electric current that seemed to spark out from his bones, blackening his insides until he felt sure he would crumble. He saw half a face, thin arms, a military uniform. Smelt white soap and aftershave, tasted weak coffee and mud. It was like someone else was in his skin, pain, laughter, the pulsing black, electrodes in his skin, the shock. 

The  _ cold. _

“Breathe,” a familiar voice was in his ear, thin hands on his chest. Pressing hard and steady, “breathe,  _ Soldat _ .”

Nat.

Nat was real. She was here. Her scent filled his head, heady and comforting and  _ his _ as it banished the uncertainty. The blackness stretched and screamed but he pushed it back, focusing on the points of warmth her palms made against his skin instead.

_ Soldat _ . He was Soldat. 

He pulled her against him, needing to anchor himself to reality as the world shifted beneath his feet. Her hair was wet, dripping against his closed eyes as he buried his face against her neck. Inhaling hard. 

“The name,” he whispered against her, spilling his secrets like blood from a wound, “the memories, I can’t…”

“What  _ do _ you remember?” She asked as he trailed of, his stomach twisting as she pulled away. Not far, just enough they could see each other’s faces in the dull grey light, her hands still steady against his collarbones as he opened his eyes at last.

The rain ran cold down the back of his neck, trickling down his spine as he stared at her silently. Trying to put words to a thousand fragments of memories that cut at him whenever he tried to look at them.

“Nothing,” he said, not recognising the hollowness in his voice as he spoke. The weight of his situation hitting him in the ribs like a fist, “Some of my training, the reasons behind it, our missions. But before that? Nothing. I am not meant to remember.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, her hands slackening against his shirt.

He wasn’t supposed to remember and she wasn’t supposed to understand. They weren’t supposed to speak like this. And if  _ they _ found out they had spoken? That he had slipped?

Terror seized him.

“Please,” he begged, no longer sure what language he spoke as the fear squeezed inside of him, “please don’t tell them. If they knew I’d stumbled... I would forget this too.”

Her. He would forget her. Her warmth, her fire, her  _ trust.  _ He would never see her again.

“They are our masters, Soldat,” she said, fingers lifting to brush through his sopping hair before falling to rest against his cheeks, “but you are my  _ partner _ . This does not need to be reported because there is nothing to report.  _ Is there _ ?”

He shook his head, pressing his face into her palm. He no longer knew if she was acting the caring lover or if it was real, he didn’t care. His touch starved skin ached for her, her gentleness a scab he would pick and pick at until he bled out entirely.

“There is nothing to report,” he confirmed, tasting the rain on her skin as she slowly drew her hand away, “this never happened.”

“Your cover’s middle name is James,” she said softly, tucking her arm through his as she turned them back towards the street, “will it do?”

He knew what she was asking, if he was able to continue the mission, the cause. If he would have her back as she had his. And he knew it didn’t matter either, he would say yes, no matter what the question was.

For her, from now on, he would always say yes.

And besides… the name did feel better.


	4. Natalie Mills & James Mills

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING GENTLE READERS: here be that mature chapter I promised! Avast ye yaharrr!

_   
Her name was Natalie Mills, it had been for five days. _

They didn’t speak about the incident in the alleyway afterwards, not outright at least, instead slipping back into the status quo like they’d never left it. But Nat couldn’t shake the memory.

She’d seen a different side of him that day in the rain, a fear that was lacking in even their most bloody, sordid missions. Soldat,  _ James,  _ wasn’t afraid of death, or pain or torture or all of the thousand sharp edged things that normal people were afraid of.

He was afraid of forgetting. 

He was afraid of forgetting  _ her _ .

The memory ached inside of her, a sweet sort of pain she couldn’t help but prod at even though she knew she shouldn’t. They weren’t normal people, she knew that, but… but they were still  _ people,  _ no matter how much they might try to convince themselves otherwise. 

She wasn’t an instrument, he wasn’t a weapon, they were human beings with human souls and human wants. Desperately human wants.

She tapped her fingers against her thigh as they reached the hotel room they were staying in. The honeymoon suite. Nervous energy fizzed inside of her, adrenaline still high in her blood from their thwarted mission.

They’d been on the edge of striking when they were called off. New information, the coded message read, retreat and regroup.

So here they were again, sweeping the room for bugs almost instinctively as soon as the door shut behind them. Any sign of compromisation had to be checked before they could loosen their cover. She tossed the sweeper to him, catching the device he threw back as they changed sides. Working in easy tandem. 

“Clear,” he said, 

“Clear,” she confirmed, dropping the devices back into their hiding places in her suitcase before pulling off her jacket, “looks like we’ll be honeymooning for a while longer.”

“Getting bored of the champagne and sight-seeing?” He asked, snagging her jacket from where she’d tossed it on the bed and hanging it neatly next to his in the closet. 

“Such western decadence,” she laughed as she removed her earrings in the vanity. Shooting a glance at him in the reflection as she added casually “we’ll have to redo the mark soon though, it’s fading already.”

The mood changed instantly, electricity crackling in the air as he turned to her, his eyes darkening as his hands froze at the hem of his sweatshirt.

“Do you remember how?” She asked into the sudden taut silence, raising an eyebrow at his reaction even as her stomach flipped and her thighs clenched. The adrenaline surging with renewed vengeance.

“Yes,” his voice was low, the sound rumbling through her as he took a half step towards her, “are you sure you still want me to?”

There was uncertainty in his eyes even now, she couldn’t help but smile at it as she turned to face him properly. Leaning back against the dresser and shaking her head at him.

“This stays between us, Soldat,” she said mock-seriously, waving her hand between them as she fought to lighten the mood, “but yes. It’s been kind of...  _ nice  _ to be mated to someone I trust. Someone I actually like for a change.”

“You like me?” Surprise coloured his features, some of the tension easing as his mouth quirked up in a half smile, like he couldn’t quite believe what she’d said. Maybe she couldn’t either.

“Don’t let it go to your head,” she rolled her eyes, pulling her sweater off and dropping it carelessly on the chair, “I still know seven hundred and four different ways to kill you in your sleep.”

“Really?” the half smile stretched into a rare grin. Crooked and teasing, his eye teeth catching at his lip as he tilted his head at her, “last time you threatened me it was seven hundred and five.”

“Yes, well, I’ve decided the Ukrainian thigh grip probably won’t work on you, your skull’s too thick.”

“Are you  _ sure _ you like me?” He asked and she found herself laughing despite herself.

“Oh shut up and bite me already,” she caught his hand, pulling him to the bed with a huff as he chuckled at her. He didn’t laugh often, the sound warming her as she pushed him to sit on the edge of the mattress. 

“Yes ma’am,” his eyes crinkled as he opened his arms to her. 

She straddled his hips without thinking, breathing deeply from her stomach when she realised what she’d done. Any hope she had had of easing the tension vanished, awareness rising like smoke between them.

“Ready?” She asked as his palm settled against her spine. Cold metal pressing against her flushed skin, a welcome contrast to the heat that had flooded through her. 

She was so close she could feel him breathing, the silky brush of his hair against her cheek making her blood fizz in her veins. It was always just a little bit too long. Like he didn’t have anyone to remind him to cut it.

“Ready,” he nodded, her heart beating faster and faster as he settled her more firmly in his lap. 

It was like he’d taken a match to her, turning her insides into gunpowder as he lowered his head and gently took her skin between his teeth. He bit down and something inside of her burst, a heady rush of desire and desperation and something she couldn’t name.

She was always in control.  _ Always.  _ Even when it seemed like she wasn’t. So why did she want to let go so badly when she was with him? It shook her, the urge to loosen the death grip she had on her life growing, begging her to give in and just _ feel  _ instead _ .  _

“Like that?” He asked, voice thick in his throat as he pulled away. The sound vibrating down her spine like the purr of some great cat, velvety and beautiful and  _ dangerous _ .

“Just like that,” she murmured back, aware she was breathing too hard. Her hands still clenched tight against his shoulders, disobeying her when she tried to let go. Instead she found herself opening her mouth again, “You know… I was thinking…”

“Yes?” he asked, less of a question than an immediate agreement. They were so close they were sharing breath, so close she could see the black in his eyes threaten to swallow the blue completely. 

“I was thinking the cover might be stronger if I marked you too,” she eased her grip on him at last, hands moving restlessly over his shoulders as the words spilt out. Ever so reasonable even if she felt anything but, “if that’s okay? Did they…”

He nodded, drawing back just far enough to pull his sweatshirt and undershirt over his head. She’d seen him shirtless before, of course, they’d run too many missions not have. Washed too much blood from their skin side by side in cramped restrooms and the backs of cars. But this was different.

This  _ felt  _ different.

It was fragile where they had always been harsh, slow when they were hurried. It felt like life after so much death.

“Here,” he offered his throat to her willingly, molten heat pooling low in her belly as she traced her fingers over the scars he revealed. 

They spilled out from the join of flesh and metal, thick ridges of pink and white radiating out like a star burst. The singular thin surgical scar almost invisible beside them at the base of his throat, a match for hers. They’d cut him too, ensured he could never belong to anyone for longer than a week.

Anyone but  _ them. _

What had felt like a release to her now seemed like cruelty, he had been denied the chance of a life mate. Of a true partner.

“This is beautiful you know,” she whispered tracing the join between man and machine until she found the place she needed. Her fingertips hesitated against the velvet soft skin where his scent was thickest. Winter mornings, crisp and cold, pine trees and wood smoke and safety, “are you sure you’re okay with this? You can say no.”

She’d never wanted to bite anyone before, to  _ claim _ them. She only claimed herself, it was safer that way. Easier. But now she wanted to claim him too. He was lost, so incredibly lost, and she wanted to protect him. To guard him. To…

“Nat,” his hand tangled in her hair, his eyes bright and clear where they met hers. This close she could see how blue they really were, they’d always seemed so dark to her from far away, “I’m certain.”

“Okay,” she breathed, licking her teeth anxiously as she adjusted herself in his lap. Hearing the strangled groan he tried to swallow as she brushed his hair away from his neck.

She could do this. She  _ wanted  _ to do this.

Leaning forward she pressed her lips to the spot, eyes fluttering shut as he filled her senses. Warm skin and scent and taste. His flesh firm and yet giving beneath her teeth as she carefully bit down.

He whimpered. A desperate little sound that seemed to bypass her brain and burn straight into her veins, making her groan as she pulled at him. Lapping at the mark she’d made as she felt his hips rolling under her, unable to keep from grinding down and finding him hard beneath her. 

“ _ Natalia,”  _ he groaned, the hands gripping her tightening as she peppered kisses over the bite mark. Her body surging against his, desperate for more friction, more fulfilment, “ _ please…” _

It took all the strength in her body to pull herself back, breathing hard as she looked down into his face, “do you want me to stop?”

“No,” his voice was hoarse, an animal need in his eyes as he lifted a hand to her face, “never.”

“Do you want…” she didn’t have a chance to finish the question, the words silenced by his mouth on hers. He kissed her clumsily, desperately, a rough press of teeth and tongue that had her heart squeezing in her chest.

“You,” he gasped into her mouth, “I want you.”

The icy barrier she kept between herself and the world melted beneath the words, the hot thrust of his tongue against hers as he kissed her again. It was primal and electric, urging her onwards as she rocked against him, the weight of him pressing against the seam of her jeans and making her groan against him.

She’d never done this before just because she wanted too. Never kissed. Never fucked. It had only ever been as someone else, someone weak and giving and  _ submissive.  _ A carefully choreographed dance she’d been drilled in, when to move, when to moan. The perfect omega.

There was nothing perfect about her now, she was broken and raw and  _ desperate _ and when she shoved him back onto the bed he let her. Looking up in wide eyed reverence as she pressed sharp toothed kisses to his collarbones. His chest. His throat. 

Marking. Claiming.  _ Taking. _

His hands were steady on her hips, anchoring her as she sank herself down on him. Watching his face with a hunger that went far beyond sex. A need that frightened her.

Her. He was here with her. Not Anastasia or Undine or even Natalie Mills. It was her he saw, her he wanted. 

She didn’t think she would ever get enough of it.

—-

_ His name was supposed to be James Mills but he’d forgotten it the minute she touched him. _

If he’d ever done this before he didn’t remember, then again even if he had he doubted he still would after this. There could be no comparison.   


Their clothes had been lost to the wind, clawed off and discarded as they pawed at each other in clumsy desperation.  The air heavy with the scent of arousal, a heady blend of sex and pheromones that no artificial fragrance could match. It drove him to madness, lost in the ebbing, flowing sea of her and perfectly willing to drown. He had never felt like this.

He had never felt so alive.

Her hands were at his shoulders, holding herself above him as she rode him at last. Her body glowing in the overhead light, transformed into something beyond him as sweat rolled down her skin like raindrops. A goddess he had forgotten how to worship.

He wanted to taste her. To capture her on his tongue as he seared the memory of this moment into his bones. Burning it so deep nothing could ever take it from him.

“Like that,” she gasped, head tilting back as she found her perfect rhythm, her hips canting as she took him deeper still, “yes, just like that.”

The sensation overwhelmed him, craving her pleasure even more than his own. To satisfy her, to give back even a fraction of what she had given him. The need shook him as the sensation mounted, tightening low in his gut as felt himself thicken with every thrust.

“Nat,” he gasped, his fingers sinking into the soft skin of her hips, wanting to be sure he had her permission for the next inevitability. He would never take from her unwillingly, he would kill anyone who tried, “are you sure you want-”

“Yes,” she gasped, her long red hair falling like a curtain around them as she bowed towards him. Slick skin and pebbled nipples scraping his chest as she kissed him again. She tasted like cinnamon and salt and salvation, “I’m sure. I want you,  _ all _ of you. No holding back. Not this time.”

He could no longer tell which language they spoke, only that her words caught him somewhere between the ribs. Hopeful and frantic as his heart surged and his hips snapped up to meet hers with renewed desperation, each obscene pop of their bodies meeting and parting driving him closer to an edge he couldn’t comprehend. 

He needed her. Needed to want and be wanted, to belong to someone he had chosen and who had chosen him in return. The sensation tightened almost painfully inside of him as she clenched around him, holding him deep as she came apart before his eyes. Some strangled cry lost in a gasp of pleasure as her spine bowed and her eyes shut, something that might have almost been his name.

It was the last straw, the final thread of his control snapping with a desperate howl as he thrust himself fully into her heat. Swelling to fill her as he lost himself to the pulsing rush of pleasure she invoked. 

It was heaven and hell, wracking him to the depths of his being as he sat heavy inside of her. He had no name for it. No framework. Shaking and sweating as she held him, her hands softening against his chest as she carefully sank down on top of him. Her body clenching and relaxing as she adjusted herself more comfortably around him, curling into his neck even as the feeling threatened to drag him under again. 

“That was…” she murmured into his jaw, every minute adjustment of her body against his sending his heart pounding all over again as she held him within her, “good job, Soldat.”

He wanted to laugh, the sound strangled in his dry throat as he placed his hands carefully around her. Wanting to hold her, to hold this for as long as he could.

It was an abstract sort of strangeness to him that he was no longer the master of his own body. His limbs heavy and sluggish and not completely his own. She hadn’t demanded his submission or taken it with pain or punishment though, he had given it to her willingly. Finding a meaning in her touch, her  _ trust,  _ that he had never expected. 

“Thank you,” he murmured against her hair as the intense feeling throbbing through his bones softened at last, letting him breathe just a little easier as he held onto her. Not knowing how to put in to words concepts he barely understood himself.

How it felt to be proved human despite yourself. To discover you were more than just a weapon. More than just death.

“You have nothing to thank me for,” she hummed contentedly against his throat. Tongue flicking over the mark she’d left and sending a whiplash of pleasure through him, “at least nothing that I don’t have to thank you for too.”

He wanted to say more but she changed the subject, her toes curling against his thigh as she tilted her head at him.

“I never asked, can you feel this?” Her fingers splayed against the metal of his arm. The distant sensation never feeling more natural to him then when it was caused by her touch.

“A little,” he turned his face towards her, trying to read her eyes better as his body twinged and groaned as it began to settle at last, “doesn’t it frighten you?”

He had often wondered. He was not like other men after all. He had been made a machine, even if she never looked at him like one. 

“No, Soldat,” her mouth quirked in a quiet smile, rolling her eyes at him as she flicked the metal with a hollow  _ ting _ , “this doesn’t frighten me.”

Something flickered in her gaze as she pulled her hand away, a distance growing in her face that made his stomach turn.

“Something does.” He said, not wanting to lose her when they were finally so close. Willing to give his other arm, his legs and torso too if it would keep her here in this moment with him. 

She was quiet for a long moment, a silent debate playing over her features before she raised her eyes to him again, solemn and still.

“Yes, something does,” she admitted, her fingers tensing against his skin, pressing tight just above his heart, “you know as well as I do, we’re not supposed to do this. To care. To  _ want _ .”

“But we do,” he said, lifting his hand to rest tentatively on top of hers. Forcing himself to be gentle even when he wanted to grip tight and never let go, “I didn’t even know was still capable of it until I met you, but it seems I am. I want you Nat, and I care about you.”

She slipped her fingers into his, her face still hesitant even as she clung to his hand.

“The management…” she whispered, trailing off like she didn’t want to finish the thought.

The  _ masters _ . Something broke through the cracks of the wall they had built around him. A tendril of anger he’d never let himself feel before. They were inevitable, the hands that held the world, the thoughts that filled his head. And he hated them for even  _ thinking _ of denying them this.

“They have the rest of us,” he said into the stillness, squeezing her hand as the feeling shook him, “they have our bodies, our minds, our  _ lives _ , maybe… maybe  _ this _ , here, is just for us.”

There was something he couldn’t fully understand in her eyes when they met his, the green in them fierce and tender all at once as she pulled his face to hers, “I think I’d like that.”


	5. Nat & Volk

_   
Her name was Natalia again, and she was in trouble. _

Her ribs still ached from her last mission in the Ukraine, not that she’d ever let her handlers see it. Weakness wasn’t tolerated, there could only be strength. Especially for her. 

She was their exception. The deadliest woman, the deadliest _ omega,  _ in the world. And she was in love.

She hadn’t meant for it to happen, she really hadn’t. She had been more than content with the strange intimacy that had grown between her and her soldier like a vine, an acknowledgement of want. Trust. _Respect_.

She liked him, that had been enough for her.

The vine hadn’t felt the same. It kept growing, slowly at first, a creeping thing that found its way through the cracks in her armour between hushed words and heated kisses. It curled itself into her bones even as she told herself it wasn’t real.

The sweet ache she got in the pit of her stomach when he smiled was a phase. The way her heart sped up when he touched her, no matter how innocently, was a passing novelty. 

The mission had stretched from weeks to months but it didn’t matter, she knew that no matter how good it felt to claim and be claimed, or how right it felt to be in his arms it would end. The feeling would fade away with his scent, leaving her behind and alone just as she’d always been.

She was wrong.

“You’re getting impatient, Nastya.” Grandmother’s voice cut through her like water through a rock. Slow and inevitable and all the deeper for it, “impatience has no place here, it makes you sloppy.”

“I am of most use on the stage, Granny,” she said, stretching her leg in a perfect arc as she worked the barre, the repetitive movements doing little to soothe her now, “that is all.”

Silence gathered, only interrupted by the steady clack of Grandmother’s knitting needles. Each stitch a gunshot, shooting through her spine as she waited. She seemed to be waiting a lot lately.

The time between her missions with him had stretched into eternities as the vine grew. Any hope she had that it would shrivel without him to water it dying out as it surged to life instead, weaving tighter between her ribs. It flourished in his absence and his presence alike.

And if Grandmother knew about it there was every chance she would never see him again.

“So it is the performance that drives you, is it?” Grandmother said to her knitting after enough time had passed, the rich burgundy wool gathering in neat lines as she worked, “ _ just _ the performance?”

“Of course,” she let herself look puzzled even as fear coiled in her belly like a snake. She pushed it down, pretending it wasn’t there as she slipped into the role of ignorant omega, “What else would it be?”

“Hmm,” Grandmother didn’t reply immediately, she never did, “I hardly know what to think when you come back so often stinking of that alpha they keep pairing you with.”

Even as she said it Natalia could smell him, crisp winter mornings and woodsmoke. Singular and understated but no less powerful for it, so ingrained in her that every time it faded from her skin she found she’d forgotten what she smelt like without him. 

“It is the cover,” she said with a shrug, “no stranger than any of the others I’ve had to take. The only difference is that with the soldier I don’t have to pretend to enjoy the process.”

It was the truth, as the best lies were. She didn’t have to pretend to enjoy it with him, she actually did.

“Besides,” she shrugged as she bent her knees and arched her spine, “it wears off quickly enough, it always does.”

“And that doesn’t disappoint you, little  _ omega _ ?” Granny’s eyes were as cold as her voice was sweet, dripping poisoned honey as her needles clacked, “You don’t  _ secretly _ wish to submit?”

Rage caught her, shoulders snapping up as she turned on the old woman. The fear making her bold.

“I am the Prima, the only graduate of the Red Room in a generation,” she bit the words out through bared teeth, “I do not submit.”

“Except to your masters.”

“Except to my  _ cause. _ ”

Milky blue eyes met hers, Natalia’s hands clenching unconsciously on the barre at the look in them. A knife-sharp awareness that seemed to strip her to the bone. Internally she ran through the weapons available to her, cataloguing all the ways she could kill the old woman before she killed her.

“Foolish girl,” Grandmother murmured, breaking the tension as her mouth twitched down in a frown and she looked away again, “you do not even know your cause.”

Natalia swallowed as she turned back to the mirror, forcing herself into an expression of absolute calm even as the words beat inside of her like a fist. It was the one thread she couldn’t pull on. What she did was right, she’d always known that, the ends justified the means.

Even… even if she’d never actually known what those ends actually were.

A clock chimed in the distance and Grandmother looked up again, sighing as she waved at her.

“Quickly now, child,” she said, “you have a new dance to perform and your partner awaits.”

Natalia forced herself to finish her stretches anyway. Putting her whole body into each motion before finally pulling away from the barre and picking up her bag.

“Thank you, Grandmother,” she said as she left the room, “for the continued education.”

The old woman didn’t reply, she didn’t need too. Her eyes followed her more effectively then any words could.

Natalia felt them as she left the building, a burning in her chest she couldn’t extinguish even as excitement rose. A sick twist of feelings as she forced herself to hold her guard, clinging to it tightly even as she met Soldat at their agreed point.

Her heart leapt, pounding in her throat, but she kept her voice cold. Acknowledging him formally, impersonally, the perfect agent. Not letting herself even look at him properly until they’d crossed the border into Belarus, it was too painful. The push and pull of being so close to him and having to stay so far. 

The car was bugged. She could read it in the pristine lines around the air vents on the dashboard. They had been replaced recently, the sunshades too. They were the wrong model. 

She had to tell him, but first she had to establish it was him at all. A fresh panic swelling in her chest as she shot a glance at him from the corner of her eye, it was becoming an old fear for her now.

“It is cold for this time of year.”

They’d agreed the code back in London when she was Natalie Mills for the first time, ever since he told her about the  _ reset.  _ The way they cleared him out when he asked too many questions, dumping his memories like out of date files they no longer had a use for.

“You could always wear a warmer jacket,” he said, fingers tensing for a split second against the wheel.

She couldn’t react. Couldn’t exhale or grab his hand or do any of the things she wanted to as relief flooded her. It was enough that he remembered her. 

He remembered  _ them.  _

“Maybe I’ll pick one up in the city,” breathing deeply she flexed her hands where he could see them. Another code, words in a secret language that had developed as they had. Her little finger and thumb extending then curling in towards her palm as she stretched, “we should switch cars too, this is too flashy for our cover.”

“Is that necessary?” He asked for show, his fingers making a quick V as he drummed them on the wheel, the sign for ‘understood.’

“It is vital every aspect of our cover is correct, Soldat,” she said, the coldness in her voice not touching her eyes as she glanced over at him again and found him looking back, “I will not have it jeopardized because you wish to cut corners.”

“Of course.”

She reached for the radio, touching her index and middle fingers to her thumb as she made a show of finding a station she liked.

_ I missed you. _

He mirrored the movement when he reached to shift gears. His eyes touching hers in the rear view mirror and making the vine in her chest grow flowers.

_ I missed you too. _

—-

_ He had so many names and none of them were his, each sitting heavy on the back of his tongue as he curled himself around the woman he loved.  _

The feeling had come early to him, creeping in like the pre-dawn light. Maybe it was when she let him bite her, maybe it was in a Moscow hallway when they were both someone else, maybe it was when he saw her for the first time, when she wouldn’t stop fighting even when she was certain to lose.

It didn’t matter. It didn’t even matter that he didn’t fully understand what love was. He loved her, that was enough. 

And they could take it away at any moment.

The knowledge ached inside of him, a broken bone he couldn’t set. He’d once found comfort in his ignorance, in only knowing what he needed to know, only doing what he was told to do. His blinkers had kept him safe from having to think and feel, from the pain of questioning.

From  _ wanting _ .

Now he wanted the pain. He wanted to remember whatever it was swimming beneath the cold black surface of his memories, no matter how much it hurt to look at. He wanted a name, a past. Something he could give her in exchange for everything she’d given him.

“You really don’t remember your birth name?” Nat asked, echoing his thoughts as she shifted against him. 

Her head was heavy against his shoulder, the streetlights outside lighting the dingy motel room in shadows of yellow. They’d swept it twice before they’d let their guard down, checking and disassembling every object and electronic their handlers had given them, on edge now they knew they were being monitored.

Perhaps their cover was too good, the truth leaking through all the lies they peddled. 

“I only know the names they give me as cover,” he murmured, brushing his knuckles along the column of her spine as he tried to push back the fear, unwilling to let it ruin the moment now he finally had her back again, “and that of  _ Soldat _ . Although sometimes they call me the Winter Soldier too, because of the cold I think.”

“Hmm,  _ Zimney Soldat,”  _ she murmured, the impersonal title becoming an endearment on her tongue, every second thawing him from the daze his forced-hibernation always left him in, “it’s fitting you know. You’ve always smelt like winter to me. Sunrise on the edge of Volgograd when I was a child, crisp and clean and beautiful.”

“ _ You _ are beautiful,” he said, lifting his hand to comb his fingers through her hair. The bright red was lost in the dim light but it didn’t matter, he knew the shade by heart, “you make me want to be more than I am.”

“You are exactly enough, Soldat _ .”  _ She butted his shoulder with her chin, fingers dancing over a fresh scar on his side, “you are the man who took a bullet for me in Prague, even if you didn’t really need too.”

“You took a knife for me first,” he countered, remembering the fight. The way they didn’t need to speak, to even look at each other any more. It was instinct, a perfect dance of light and shadow. “ _ Even if you didn’t really need too _ .”

She huffed out a quiet laugh, fingers curling and relaxing as the room fell into silence again. 

These always became his favourite memories, the ones he guarded most closely in the empty corridors of his mind. The times when the adrenaline had waned and the blood was washed away, when they didn’t have to be other people. Just him and her in the quiet little gaps between their lies. He clung to them every time they shut the thick metal door on him and locked him away again, determined his last thought would be of her, and his first.

It was what the handlers and managers and men in charge didn’t understand. They didn’t need any of their  _ methods  _ for keeping him in line _ ,  _ none of the machines or shocks or beatings. All they had to do was promise he could see her again and he would do anything they asked.

“You’ll give yourself wrinkles,” she broke into his thoughts, her fingers smoothing out his brow and making him realise he’d been frowning, “you know how they feel about permanent marks.”

“A stupid rule,” he said, rolling over and pinning her against the mattress, determined to chase the cold away with her warmth, “if I could I would have you tattooed into my skin, something big and permanent they could never remove.”

“Really?” She raised an eyebrow at him teasingly as she dragged her fingers over his chest. Convincing him he only existed in the places their skin met, “and what exactly would you get? A knife perhaps? A spider here?” She poked his side before letting her hand circle his waist, reaching back and squeezing his flank, “Natalia in a heart?” 

He laughed despite himself, blood surging in his veins as he braced himself above her on one arm. Hot and heavy in his veins as he lowered his head.

“A black widow,” he caught her hand, pressing it tightly to his heart, “right here.”

“Because I’m deadly?” She asked, foot lifting to trace the length of his calf as she shifted her hips beneath him, the warmth turning to heat. Molton and addictive as it gathered at the base of his spine.

“Yes, and because you could eat me alive and I would thank you.”

She exhaled a laugh, back arching as she rose to meet him. Bare skin scraping his, warm and soft as their bodies met.

“Romantic,” she breathed the word against his mouth, his lips parting in anticipation of a kiss that never came. Instead she pulled back again, hair spilling over the pillow as she smirked up at him, “I think I’d get a wolf.”

“A wolf?” He repeated stupidly, his mind fogged with desire. A hunger for her he doubted he could ever fully slake. 

“Yes, a wolf right… here…” freeing her hand from his she drew her fingers up over her ribs, dancing between her breasts to trace her collarbone. Just beneath the mark he’d left at her throat, “one with your eyes in the winter snow, _moy_ _Volk_.”

“Volk… I like when you call me that,” his voice came out hoarse; a half growl, half whimper as her foot trailed higher to brush the back of his knee, “it sounds almost like a name.”

“Mmm,” she arched up, thighs parting as she wrapped her legs around his hips, eyes flashing in a dare, “maybe you should give me a reason to say it again then.”

He didn’t need telling twice.


	6. The Spider & The Soldier

_   
Her name was Spider and she had been summoned. _

She knew as she approached the clean white meeting room that this would be an important mission, they only sent the komandirs down when it was critical. Something that needed a careful touch **.**

Like the first time she’d met Volk. 

Adrenaline flooded her, a heady pulse of anticipation she kept locked behind a neutral expression as she let herself in. An important mission now would probably mean deep cover, and deep cover meant she’d see him again - for months and months this time if she was lucky. It had been too long since their last joint operation. Three months too long.

She’d dreamt about it every night since, her usually unbroken sleep disturbed by constant replays of the last night they’d shared before they had to return. 

The heat of the day had faded, cold starting to creep up through the concrete as they lay on their bellies on the roof of an apartment building in Prague. The summer sky was open above them, a sniper rifle at his elbow and the comm in her hand, their voices kept low as they waited for the target. 

She’d switched the radio to the oldies station after they’d settled in, his favourite, teasing him about his taste in music even as she enjoyed it too. There was something comforting about the hushed sound of jazz and big band music in the stillness above the city. A timeless quality that seemed to perfectly score the long hours they spent together beneath the night sky.

It was a strange sort of perfect. Volk was warm at her side as the night grew colder, his right arm wrapped around her waist. The music, the quiet conversation. It had felt almost like they were the only two people left in the world. 

“Natalia,” he didn’t glance up from his scope as he said her name, adjusting the placement minutely as the wind ruffled his hair, “there's something I need to say to you.”

“What is it?” She asked, fiddling with the settings of the tracker as their target made his way slowly towards them. He was moving like treacle but she didn’t mind, every moment he wasted was another they could stay here after all.

“I love you.”

Her fingers froze, heart catching in her chest at the simple admission. She never expected him to say it, how could she? They weren’t allowed such fragile, frivolous things as feelings. It was against everything they had been trained to believe. She had  _ felt _ it, sure, but she’d never thought to… she’d thought that they were both content to let it lie unspoken between them. Silent as the stars.

She was wrong.

“You should know it,” he said into the ringing silence as she struggled to catch her breath,  “just in case anything happens… I want you to know it.”

“Volk,” she didn’t know what to say, in twenty two years her tongue had never failed her so spectacularly as it did then. Tangling behind her teeth as she stared at him, “what…”

She couldn’t remember the last time someone had said those words to her, at least not sincerely. She thought perhaps there might have been a woman once who shared her red hair and smelt of violets and cleaning fluid. She thought the woman might have whispered those words in her ear, brusque and tear choked as Natalia was bundled into the waiting car.

She thought she might have cried out for that woman every night until she learnt not to. The girls who cried didn’t last long after all.

“Talk grows,” Volk said, eyes shifting from the guns sight at last to meet hers, pale in the moonlight beneath his unruly mop of dark hair, “I think they will put me away for summer soon, this might be the last-”

“No,” she didn’t register moving, only knowing that one moment she was beside him and the next she was glaring down at him. Straddling his waist as she bunched her fists in his collar, “I won’t let them put you away. You’re  _ mine _ , Volk, and I am yours. You’re my mate. We chose each other.”

They had, over and over again they had. Every time he marked her or she marked him it was a confirmation of it, they weren’t mates by accident or some cosmic hand of fate. They were mates because they chose to be. 

He kissed her then, the mission forgotten as he curled his fingers into her hips. She tried to breathe the words into him, to score them so deeply they became true. 

They both knew they weren’t the kind of people who were allowed choices, not any more than they were allowed feelings but she didn’t care. She wouldn’t let this be another goodbye.

It was only afterwards, with the mission complete and the memory of his skin still warm against hers in the emptiness of her room in the ballet dorm that she realised she hadn’t said it back.

Not the first time. Not then.

She’d never said them and meant them to anyone.

Today she would set that right.

“Ah! Spider, so good to see you again.”

The smell of the alphas hit her first, it always did. They stank of hair product and expensive cologne and self satisfaction. She bared her teeth in a smile, eyes flicking efficiently over the room, searching for a figure amongst the group she already knew wasn’t there.

She couldn’t smell him.

“Komandir,” impatience caught at her, a ribbon of unease lacing itself between her ribs as she forced herself into perfect stillness, “I am reporting for duty.”

“And such a duty,” the komandir smirked greasily, “this is an important mission little agent, and difficult too.”

“I am not afraid of a challenge,” her hands clenched behind her back, nails digging into her palms, “if you will tell me our cover I’m sure-”

“ _ Our? _ ” The komandir had a missing incisor, the black space gaping as he smiled. Natalia felt her blood freeze, “there will be no  _ ‘our’ _ on this mission, you will be going alone.”

“I am surprised,” the ribbon tightened, cutting off her air supply as she lifted her chin, “if it is as important as you say, then surely a partner would be prudent.”

“Spider, if we had a suitable partner we would give them to you,” he sighed, hands spreading in a wide shrug, “but alas we do not.”

It was a test. She couldn’t react. She couldn’t-

“What about the Soldat?” She cringed silently at the sound of her own voice, no matter how professional it sounded. The cold formality couldn’t mask the pounding of her heart, her stomach squeezing hard enough to hurt as she fought to keep her mask in place.

“Ah, yes,  _ him.  _ He will not be working with anyone again, he has been terminated from service.”

There was a patch on the wall a half-shade lighter than the rest just behind the komandir’s elbow. Four inches tall, five wide. Someone had replastered it recently and the paint hadn’t properly dried.

“Terminated?” She repeated, eyes stuck to the square of wall as she watched the moment from outside of herself and in at once. What had happened there? It was the right size for a fist she supposed, or a bullet.

Was that where…? No. No they would have done it at his safe house. She didn’t know where exactly it was but he said it was cold. She hoped he hadn’t been cold when…

“Yes,” the komandir sighed wearily, pulling at the cuffs of his suit jacket. Navy blue and one size too big for him, “let us hope the next one they send us is less faulty. In the meantime you will be working this mission alone, if you’re sure your capable?”

“Of course,” she lied, heat burning behind her eyes as she held out her hand for the file, she was amazed it didn’t shake, “what difference should it make to me?”

She thought she had known pain but she hadn’t. 

She hadn’t know anything.

—-

  
  


_ His name was Soldat and he had been summoned. _

The facility was at the edge of the siberian wasteland, cold and empty in the harsh white landscape. He had, at one point, considered it his home - at least like a homing pigeon might have. The set of coordinates in the centre of his world from which all else stretched.

Now he knew differently. His home was a hundred miles way, beating and alive in the chest of his mate. This was just a stop gap.

“This way.” The soldiers and handlers marched him through the sterile concrete hallways deeper into the bunker, towards the cryo-chamber.

“I thought there was a mission?” He asked as they turned through the wire-caged hallways into the inner sanctum. 

There had been a file, a deep cover mission in the heart of enemy territory. One he would share with  _ her.  _ He had been prepping for it all day, only now instead of her he faced a slew of white-coated doctors and guards, their hands tense against their weapons.

“Not today, Soldat,” his new handler said, his hand braced against Volk’s spine as he pushed him further into the room, “it has been decided you have been too long without a reset, your talents are being wasted on frivolous missions. No, the time has come to purify your mind and store your body until you are truly needed again.”

“No.” The word left him in a bark, the assembled watchers flinching as Volk pulled away from them.

“What did you say, Soldat?” The handler’s voice had gone cold, his eyes glittering in the harsh overhead lights as Volk faced him down.

“I said no.” He repeated, every muscle tensing as adrenaline coated his tongue. Bitter and harsh as he stared at the man, “I will not allow it.”

“ _ You  _ do not get a choice,” his handler snapped, “you will be reset, and that is the end of it.”

One gesture and the guards were moving, closing in around him as the whine of electricity filled the air. The generators rumbling beneath him as he spun his gaze in a wide circle.

“Please,” panic burned hot in his chest, pricking at the backs of his eyes as he assessed the room, “don’t do this.”

“It is for the best,” the handler sighed, gesturing to the guards again as he stepped away, “you have grown too attached to the world, Soldat, and those in it. It is a weakness we must burn out, your first priority must always be to the cause.”

“No, I-”

“Don’t worry,” he said almost soothingly, a mockery of the pain aching deep in Volk’s bones, “you won’t even remember her name soon. If only we could all be so lucky with women.”

_ Nat _ . They were going to take Nat away from him.

He didn’t think, he couldn’t, instinct and terror driving him as the guards rushed in. Bones snapped. Guttural screams of pain filled the air as he struck at them, his body moving without conscious thought as he broke and punched and  _ killed _ . Becoming the animal they treated him as, something wild and scared and ready to chew off its own leg to escape their trap.

They couldn’t have her. Not Nat. He had waited so long to have something worth remembering, something worth  _ living _ for, he’d rather die than give it up now.

He was almost at the door when the blow struck, a shock baton between the shoulderblades he hadn’t accounted for in the melee. It stalled him, knees buckling as he howled. A raw sound of despair he didn’t recognize.

The momentary distraction was all it took.

He was outnumbered, outgunned, alone. His spine bowing as they shoved him into the chair, metal clamps constricting around his limbs as he bucked and fought.

He couldn’t let them take her from him. He couldn’t. He had to  _ remember _ .

The clamps clenched tighter, someone speaking as he struggled against the restraints. The metal of his arm whining and creaking as he tried to break free, bones bruising with every desperate thrash even as he fought to keep her in his mind.

He loved a woman with fierce green eyes and blood red hair. Her name was Natalia Romonova and she was his mate. He called her Nat. She called him Volk. She smelled like cinnamon and pine and there were times when he thought she was the only thing in the world capable of making him feel warm again.

The mouth-guard was jammed between his teeth, plastic bitter against his tongue. He tried to spit it out, to bite the hands that pushed it, but they only shoved it deeper. He choked on it, gagging and gasping as he fought harder still.

His name was Volk and the first time he’d kissed her he thought he might die from the feeling. 

Lightning split his bones as the device clamped down around his head, blood boiling in his veins as it coursed through him. 

His name was Volk and he had told her he loved her under the stars in Prague.

White heat burst behind his eyes, blinding him as his body tensed and shook without his permission.

_ His name was Volk and… _

Pain. Pain and someone screaming. He was screaming. 

_ His name was… _

Words in his ear as he twisted, convulsing as they pierced through his skull and into his brain. Needle sharp. Unstoppable.

_ His name... _

Darkness. He was lost in it. He  _ was _ it. A still, true black that filled his chest as he shuddered. 

_ His… _

The pain faded as he blinked against the bright overhead lights. 

_ His name was Soldier and he was ready to comply.  _

  
  
  
  



	7. Agent Romanoff & The Winter Soldier

_   
Her name was Natasha Romanoff and she was an Agent of Shield.  _

The fact remained a constant surprise to her, she had thought she’d be dead long before she ever sided with her once-enemy.  _ Enemy.  _ It had become a relative term after that day in Moscow when she’d found out Volk was dead. Everything had

It was as if part of her - the best part - had died with him and whatever was left behind was just…  _ cold _ .

So unbearably cold. 

She’d been shot, stabbed, and electrocuted. Drowned, beaten, and bruised. She’d endured every physical and mental torture the world could conceive and none of it mattered. Nothing did.  All she thought about was the work, the mission, it didn’t even matter what it was. She had committed atrocities beyond imagination, taken lives without count, all because she couldn’t bear to think for herself.

If she stopped she’d have to face what had happened, if she questioned her orders she’d have to question what they’d done to him. She was too weak to do it, so she sank herself in her bloody work instead and prayed to gods she didn’t believe in that she would drown. 

That was when Clint had found her, right on the edge of a cliff she couldn’t come back from. She’d almost let him kill her, just to make it stop, but then he’d given her another choice. A chance to make things better, even if she didn’t believe she deserved it. To become some shadow of the woman her soldier had known. 

He’d offered her a second chance and she’d taken it.

She didn’t think she’d ever have another friend, especially not an alpha. She was glad she was wrong. The path wasn’t smooth but it was better, breathing got a little easier, the blood that threatened to blind her sinking just enough that she could see the shore again.

And, as it turned out, some things never changed no matter whose name was on her paycheck. A mission was a mission. A name was a name. And the singular itch that grew between her shoulder blades when someone was following her never altered.

She whipped the car around a sharp bend, hands gripping tight to the wheel. The sensation had grown, picked up on the border of the Ukraine and wavering in and out like a badly tuned radio ever since. It kept her on edge, teeth clenching as she worked to keep her reluctant passenger in his seat and her mission on track. 

The Black Sea glittered beyond the precarious cliff edge that the road followed, the moon turning everything milky and strange. There was a turnoff ahead, if she could take them inland she could lose her phantom in the trees. Find higher ground, finish it.

_ Bam bam bam bam. _

The shots rang through the night, tires screeching as they blew out in quick succession. Her stomach lurched, adrenaline thundering in her ears with the sound of her engineers scream as she spun the wheel. A thousand calculations ran through her head at once, the angle, the speed, the cliff edge rushing towards them.

Her stomach lifted, weightless as they sailed over the edge. She braced herself, hand slamming out to pin the engineer in his seat as they careened down and down and…

_ Crunch. _

She swam up from the blackness, trying to make sense of how long she’d been out as she fought for consciousness. A minute? Two?

Breathing hard through her nose she forced herself to catalogue her injuries. At least one broken rib, bruised lungs. A twisted ankle where it jammed up under the dash and whiplash from the airbags that burst in their faces.

Bad but not impossible. Not the worst she’d ever faced.

Swearing in every language she knew Nat pulled herself upright, snapping off her seatbelt and reaching for her engineer. Smoke stung the back of her throat, blood dripping into her eyes as she dragged him upright.

He couldn’t be dead. She wouldn’t allow it.

“You alright?” She demanded, twisting to survey him even as she calculated how far they could get before their assailant got to them if they’d been out for as long as she thought.

If he was sloppy, and they were very lucky, he would assume they were dead and leave them at the bottom of the cliff. 

Not that she’d ever been lucky. 

“I - I...” He was breathing heavily, voice reedy and thin as he stared at her, “I’m bleeding…”

“Good,” she hissed, her ribs protesting as she grabbed him by the collar and hauled him out of the car, “that means you’re still alive.”

The landscape seemed more desolate than ever in the darkness beyond the road, there were no streetlights here. Just them and the moon and the cold stars above.

And the darker space in the shadows. The figure climbing down the cliffside towards them.

“Stay down,” she snapped quietly as the engineer whimpered. It was fight or flight and there was nowhere to run to. 

Looks like fight it was.

She eyed up their assailant as she reached for her weapon, the small handgun the only thing she’d been able to get across the border. Even from this distance she could tell he was a man, an alpha, and a  _ professional _ . 

Forcing her engineer more firmly behind her she tried to line up her shot. Her breath was coming hand, hands shaking, a sprained wrist compounding her list of injuries. Which was less than ideal right now.

“You don’t want to do this,” she said to the man as he came closer and closer, “I am having a  _ really  _ bad day.”

He was in sight now, something hauntingly familiar about his movements as he jumped the last few feet to the ground below. The shadows clung to him, breaking away as he stepped out into the moonlight. The stars glinted silver off his arm.

“Move.” The word was twisted through the muzzle but there was no mistaking it.

“ _ Volk.”  _

It hurt to say, the first time in years she’d dared to speak his name aloud. He was dead. It was the only reason she’d gotten out when she did, why she… 

Her head was ringing, echoing in the stillness as she stared at him. Concussion. He was a hallucination caused by a concussion from the crash. Or… or she’d died.

Was it sick that part of her hoped it was true?

That the crash had been worse than she’d thought, wiping her out and sending her here. Volk had been waiting to meet her, ready to take her to whatever sort of  _ beyond  _ people like them got. 

Only she didn’t believe in afterlives, she’d seen too much death for that. And besides, if this was her hallucination she would’ve been able to see his eyes. He wouldn’t be muzzled, or quite so heavily armed. Which left one option, one reality.

Her knees sagged, the air leaving her in a ragged gasp as she confronted the truth.

He was alive.

“ _ Move,”  _ he demanded again in sharp Russian.

He was alive and he didn’t know her.

The realisation almost felled her, winded and shaking as she stared wordlessly at him. All the things she’d ever wanted to say to him dying on her tongue.

He had forgotten her, both of their nightmares come true.

She didn’t have a chance to recover, to square up and do her job like she knew she had too.

He had already taken the shot.

—-

_ His name was Soldier and he was ready to comply. _

“Was it confirmed?”

He had a new handler. They seemed to change with every reawakening, moving in and out of his conscious like ghosts as he completed mission after mission. That was the only constant, the work. The work and this one room in this one facility.

It was cold and damp and smelt of mildew and bleach, the metal chair with it’s heavy apparatus sitting sentinel in the middle of the concrete floor. A reminder of what awaited him, the inevitability that came no matter how much he tried to delay it.

He always remembered the resets, even if he didn’t remember what it was they’d reset him from. It seemed some pain couldn’t be forgotten.

“The target is dead,” he said, the hard back of the chair icy against his spine as he let himself be led into it. A reminder of the consequences of an unfavourable report, “confirmed approx twenty-one-hundred hours.”

It was supposed to be have been a standard mission, a track-and-eliminate job with a single target. An engineer from Iran. For some reason though it hadn’t felt standard at all, the memory of it crawling after him. An unsettling warmth clinging to his skin that he couldn’t shake even now. 

Nothing in his mission files had mentioned the woman.

If he closed his eyes he could still see her now. He had watched her from a distance, a slight figure with a dark scarf wrapped around her hair and equally dark glasses covering her eyes. He was too far away to get a proper idea of her scent or status, split-second tendrils of her washing over him as he tracked them across border after border waiting for his moment.

What he did scent was… well,  _ jarring _ . A strange note to it that seemed to bypass his mind entirely in favour of lodging itself somewhere in the darkness in the back of his brain. A knee jerk rush of warmth and spice and safety. It had distracted him more than it should have, not that he had any intention of telling his new handler that. 

Honesty was expected, but this was an irrelevant detail. Not mission critical, and certainly not something that needed to be shared. Not if it meant they’d put him back in the machine again.

“And the enemy agent?” The new handler was stooped over him, his pale hair scraped over to one side of his head as he dragged the soldier back into the moment. 

“Shot but not confirmed,” he said, eyes level with the man’s throat as he stared pointedly at nothing. If was better not to make eye contact unnecessarily, the alphas too often took it as a challenge, “the priority was on the target only.”

She hadn’t been in his orders, and he always followed his orders.

He tried not to think about how he’d taken the weaker shot. It would have been far easier and cleaner to go through her chest, it was the logical move, ensuring they both died. Instead he had angled his weapon, a non-fatal wound that got her out of the way so he could finish off the engineer.

He didn’t understand why he’d done it, or why she hadn’t just stepped away and let him finish his mission when it became obvious she couldn’t win. He was lost at why she’d stood so fiercely in front of her charge, or looked at him with such  _ feeling. _

What mattered was that she had hesitated and he had shot. That was all.

Everything else was irrelevant. Even the way he’d stood over her for a minute too long after discharging his mission, watching her breathe in the darkness.

The scarf had come loose, her hair fanning out around her like a dark halo. The moonlight had leached her of her colour but he thought it might have been red. The same slick colour that leaked from her abdomen into the hard packed dirt beneath. Something about it, the sight, the  _ smell.  _ Copper and rust and beneath it that  _ sweetness _ . It made the void in the pit of his stomach ache _ . _

It made him...

“Very well,” his handler sighed, pulling him sharply back into the moment, “next time confirm death if possible, the world would be better off with one less enemy agent.”

“Yes sir.”

Why had it gotten into him? He image clung to him like thorns, poking holes through the comforting shell he’d surrounded himself with and leaving him feeling like he was the one bleeding.

He could still see her now, her pale lips and closed eyes, the vision so perfectly complete he felt like part of him was still there. Still watching.

“Sir-” he was surprised to hear his own voice in the air, his head turning without his permission to look up at his current master even as he cringed internally at the action, “the woman... who was she?”

He shouldn’t have asked. Questions meant being put back in the machine. Back in the cold. But for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.

Not if it meant he might find out who she was, giving a name to the face that had tattooed itself into the back of his eyelids. 

“An enemy, Soldat,” a hard frown crossed his handlers features, something he could almost mistake for anger, or worry perhaps, “that is all you need to know. Zhidkov, prep him for cryo.”

Swallowing past the lump in his throat the soldier gave himself up to the doctors hands. At least if he was in the ice he wouldn’t be able to think about her. 

Maybe when he awoke the twisting feeling in the pit of his stomach would have gone too. The shaking, bile coated shadow that felt almost like  _ guilt  _ at what he’d done.


	8. The Avenger

_  
Her name was Natasha Romanoff and she was an Avenger. Apparently. _

She still wasn’t entirely sure how or why she’d gotten the title, she was a liaison. A spy. Her best work was done in shadows and secrecy, the world saving stuff better left to the bonafide superheroes and men with billion dollar suits.

The fact she was still an agent at all was a minor miracle in itself, there was a time when she’d barely even been that. Not after she’d woken up in a Shield hospital with a hole in her side and an empty space in her chest. She had been ready to give it up

All of it.

Shield. The work. Fury.

No matter how much she’d grown to appreciate the place she’d found under his guidance or the good she’d been able to do there, it wasn’t enough. Not now she knew that Volk, her soldier, her _ mate,_ was alive. There was only finding him. It was her one mission, her one reason to breathe in and out over and over again.

She had to save him. She had to make him remember.

It was Clint who convinced her to stay, Shield might have had her files but he was the only one knew the things that had never been written down. Her silent history and heart ache. He might have been the only one in the world who knew she had a heart at all.

He was the one person in the world she had truly cared for other than Volk, even if it was in a very different way. He had saved her from her worst instincts after all, stayed beside her when they’d faced down gods and monsters beside men who were both. 

That was why she listened when he counselled patience. He could, despite all appearances, be incredibly sensible when he wanted to be. He was right when he pointed out that Shield had resources she didn’t, resources that meant it would be easier to keep tabs on any sightings from within the system then outside of it. 

When Volk appeared again she would know, she’d be ready. And in the meantime she supposed world-saving really wasn’t so bad of a pastime. Her silent search continuing as weeks turned to months turned to more.

“Coffee?” Steve Rogers appeared at her shoulder carrying a mug, she was in his apartment in Washington. It was a mission from Fury to check in on the _ First Avenger _and the proposition he’d been given, but she’d taken it willingly. She rather liked the old soldier. 

He was the only other omega on _ The Team _after all, a fact that had been left out of every history book she’d ever read. It seemed the world hadn’t been able to handle an omega Captain America in the forties, they needed him to be the big strong alpha they expected.

It was the fact they still weren’t willing to acknowledge it now that was the depressing part. A fact made even worse by the realisation that there were only two alphas on the Avengers roster to begin with, Clint and whatever kind of space-equivalent-alpha Thor was. Stark and Banner were both betas, something else that was glossed over by the media all too often.

Fury had his faults but he was the first person in a position of power she’d met who truly didn’t care about status. She just wished the rest of the world would catch up. 

It was supposed to be different now, it was the twenty first century after all. Heats and ruts had been wiped out in the seventies with polio. Claims could be surgically altered, and scent suppressors or magnifiers could be purchased over the counter in every corner store in the country.

Still, some things never changed. The world still assumed they were all alphas until specifically proven otherwise. And even then there was likely to be an outcry, a growing movement claiming it was all a conspiracy theory to pander to the ‘snowflake omega’s sensibilities.’

She was better off not thinking about it, it only made her angry. Better to keep her head down and get the job done, speaking of...

“Thanks, Rogers,” she accepted the mug from him with a sigh, letting it warm her hands as she focused her attention fully on the present. His apartment a disjointed mix of military minimalism and old-fashioned odds and ends that she imagined reminded him of home, “how’ve you been?”

“Are you asking, or is Fury?” Steve raised an eyebrow, the hint of a smile belying his suspicious tone. He might have looked the big dumb beefcake but there was nothing stupid about Steve Rogers. 

“Both.” She shrugged easily, “he wants to know if you’re recovering after the incident, I… well, maybe I just want to catch up with an old friend.”

“Do you have any?” He asked, the corner of his mouth twitching up in earnest.

“Hmm,” she narrowed her eyes over the top of her mug, the coffee hot but watery. He made it weak without sugar or creamer, like he was still on soldiers rations, “do you? You’ve been here a while… meet the neighbours yet? I passed the blonde across the hall coming up, she’s cute, if you’re into alphas.”

“Status never much mattered to me,” he sighed as he sat back in his chair, an old man noise she‘d mocked him for more than once, “my best friend was an alpha.”

“There are some good ones out there, surprisingly.”

“Clint’s a good guy,” he nodded and she didn’t correct him. He was more than a good guy, but he wasn’t who she’d been thinking of. Who she was always thinking of.

Every alpha, every man since Volk had been compared to him and found lacking.

“Yours must have been something,” she cut the thought off, tilting her head instead, “You’d have to be to run with _ Captain America_. He the only alpha in your life?”

She seeded her questions carefully, working at the edges of him like a knife at an oyster. Certain she just needed the right angle to crack him open. 

“No,” he hitched one big shoulder at her, his eyes turning distant as the knife found its mark, “there was a girl… but it was a long time ago now.”

“You loved her,” she said. It wasn’t a question, no matter how guarded he thought he was some things were all too easy to read. Some pearls too bright to be hidden, “either of them still around?”

“Buck’s gone, but Peggy…” he said it like it hurt, eyes creasing as he looked anywhere but at her, “not that I’ve seen her since...”

“You should,” she cut him off, “you should see her.”

He met her gaze, the sharpness of his blue eyes reminding her that the knife went both ways and as good as she was at hiding her thoughts, she wasn’t superhuman. 

“Who did you lose?” He asked, her spine tensing even as she forced herself to smile. To look as open as she was closed inside.

“I don’t have any friends remember,” she joked, setting her mug aside as she relaxed her shoulders, “have you thought any more about Fury’s offer?”

“S.T.R.I.K.E?” A furrow formed between his brows as she silently exhaled, there was nothing to distract a soldier like talk of war, “I don’t know…”

“We could use you in the field, Captain.” She pressed, focusing her full attention on the mission as she swept the rest under the rug.

“What happened to wanting to catch up?” He asked, smiling wanly over the top of his mug.

“I can multitask,” she shrugged, “besides, it would be a great way to meet new people. Come on, Rogers, it’ll be fun.”

“I worry about your idea of fun.”

“Is that a yes?” She teased, pulling out her phone on the pretense of getting a message. 

“It’s an _ ‘I’ll think about it.’”_

“That’s all I ask,” tucking her phone away again she rose from the chair, “thanks for the coffee, Cap, see you soon.”

—-

_ ‘Soon’ _ turned out to be less than three months.

Civilian life obviously didn’t suit the Captain, he was too used to adrenaline she supposed. To being useful. Either way it made her missions easier, even if it did take a little while to get used to him.

Steve was a different sort of partner than she was used to, not the silent steadiness of Volk or the energetic rush of Clint. He was a man used to leading the charge, going in strong and hard and taking the brunt for his team. He saw things in black and white, in red white and blue. There was good and there was bad to him.

She secretly hoped his gaze never landed on her like that. She didn’t know what end of the spectrum she’d end up on.   
Or maybe she did and that was the problem.

Either way one mission led to another, one set of lies exchanged for the next. _ Compartmentalising,_ that’s what Fury called it. She didn’t complain. Compartmentalising made everything easier, missions, lies, life. If she could cut off the broken, human parts of herself she could work so much easier. 

Like when they’d stormed the ship held by pirates she was pretty sure Nick had hired. Or when she’d gathered the intel she wasn't supposed to mention to Steve. 

It was harder to compartmentalise when the world started falling apart. 

Everything changed in an instant, the known and unknown mixing and melting into something she didn’t recognise as she was summoned to an underground med facility to watch Nick Fury bleed out. 

He lay like a rag doll on a gurney, surrounded by surgeons as she watched from beyond the glass. He had been concrete to her. Untouchable in the way her handlers in the KGB had never been. They had come and gone like summer days, but Nick... Nick was solid. He was, in a strange way, her new Grandmother. 

Only he didn’t knit, or threaten to kill her if she showed any hint of developing emotions. 

“Tell me about the shooter.” She demanded quietly, unable to look away from the doctors as Steve stood silent beside her. He was the last person to see Fury, he had information she needed.

“He’s fast, he’s strong.” He said to his reflection in the glass, “Had a metal arm.”

Four words and the world dropped out from underneath her completely. Silver blinded her, glinting from the surgeons scalpel. From his arm. 

Not him. Not now. Not _ this._

“Ballistics,” she forced herself to say as Maria joined them, trying to hide the hard clench of her stomach and the taste of bile on her tongue.

“Three slugs, no rifling, completely untraceable,” Maria said, three pairs of eyes stuck to the glass now as they talked through the tragedy unfolding in front of them. 

“Soviet made.” She finished for her, voice distant as she watched Nick Fury die and felt like it was her on the table. Wishing someone would shove the paddles against her chest and make her breathe again.

She felt like she was trading lives. Nick for Volk this time. 

It was on her, all of it, if she’d tried harder when she’d seen him in Odessa, if she’d found him first...

She had failed them both.  
  


—-

The thought of her failure chased her long after the life support had been turned off and the tables scrubbed down. Her insides twisting with a sick mix of hope and fear as inactivity ate away at her, she needed to find Volk first, before anyone else did.

She had to save him like she couldn’t save Nick.

That was why she let Steve corner her in the hospital. Twice. He had pieces she needed. The flash drive he’d hidden, the one she’d stolen from the ship so very very long ago it seemed now, sitting heavy in her pocket as he shoved her into a wall. 

She needed to understand it. She needed his help.

“I know who killed Fury.” 

The sentence was out almost before she’d given herself permission to say it. They’d been trading words like blows as she weighed her options, wondering exactly how much she could trust America’s incorruptible son. Trust was a commodity in short supply these days, then again for her it always had been.

He didn’t give her the answer, only watching silently as he waited for her to continue.

So she did. 

“Most of the intelligence community doesn’t believe he exists, the ones that do call him the Winter Soldier.”

She hadn’t. She’d called him Soldat until that one night Austria. The light coming through the slats beside her turned yellow, throwing her back into another nameless motel room on another mission.

She’d called him _ Volk. _Her wolf.

_ I like it when you call me that. _ He whispered in her ear, so close she could almost believe he was beside her now, _ It almost sounds like a name. _

Clenching her jaw she forced herself to continue, casting away the memories as she met Steve’s eyes again, “he’s credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years.” 

She didn’t mention how many she had helped him complete, how many more there were that Shield hadn’t found out it about. They had been good at what they did after all. Too good perhaps. 

If they hadn’t been separated who knew how many more there would have been.

“So he’s a ghost story?” Steve asked, brows lifting at her description.

He wasn’t wrong she supposed, Volk had been haunting her for years.

“He’s my ghost story,” she searched Steve’s face, trying to decide how much to share. Each word was a self-inflicted stab, how deep could she cut before she knicked something vital? “Five years ago I was escorting a nuclear engineer from Iran, someone shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out but the winter soldier was there”

She saw him drop from the rocks to the ground below, heard the familiar tread of his footsteps and smelt the faint scent of him on the night breeze. Her heart breaking all over again even as she kept her voice even. 

“I was covering my engineer so he shot him, straight through me. Soviet slug. No rifling.” She forced a smile, a joke even as the words stung, “Bye bye bikinis.”

The air was cold against her skin as she lifted her shirt and bared the scar to him. She’d clung to it like a sick sort of trophy ever since, refusing any sort of cosmetic surgery or treatment Shield had offered. It was the only proof she had that he was still out there.

That they’d ever met at all.

“Yeah I bet you look terrible in them now.”

Steve dragged her back into the moment before she could sink too deep. She dropped the hem of her shirt, squaring her shoulders as she tilted her head to meet his gaze.

“Going after him is a dead end, I know I’ve tried,” and failed, and failed and failed and _ failed_, “Like you said he’s a ghost story.”

This was it, this was her leap. Swallowing silently she held out the flash drive. She couldn’t do it alone, not this time.

“Well then,” Steve’s mouth thinned, his eyes solemn as he nodded, “Let’s find out what the ghost wants.”


	9. Target & Target

_  
Her name was Natasha and she was a wanted woman. _

Things had gone into overdrive after she’d told Steve as much of the truth as she could part with. They’d hit the trail and the trail had eventually hit back. A mess of running and hiding and missile strikes.

They had been moving so hard, so fast, that it wasn’t until she was perched on the edge of a stranger’s bathtub in the Washington suburbs that she remembered to breathe at all. Her head was too busy spinning with every hope and horror the last two days had inflicted on her. With seeing_ him _ again, even if it was just in a computerised nazi’s files on an outdated monitor.

“You okay?”

Steve was resting heavily against the sink, something unforgivably understanding passing over his features as he turned to look at her. Like he could hear the constant background noise of panic that had taken over her skull.

“Yeah.” She lied, towelling her hair dry. She doubted there was a shampoo alive that could get the smell of rocket fuel and rubble off of her, Sam Wilson’s three-in-one ‘_dark mountain’ _scented body wash only seemed to make it worse.

Steve was just as hard to shift when he got stuck on something.

Like now.

“What’s going on?” He knelt in front of her, bringing himself down to eye level. A soft confrontation but a confrontation nevertheless.

She supposed, what with his recent run of saving her life, he deserved some answers. 

“When I first joined Shield I thought I was going straight.” She said to the cracks in the tiles, dropping the towel into her lap as the words found their way out of her, “but I guess I just traded in the KGB for Hydra. If I wasn’t already working for them in the first place.”

She’d thought Volk had been KGB too after all. She was wrong about that, she was wrong about a lot of things. Her insides twisted, shoulders tensing uncomfortably as she tried to work out if she was relieved or not to talk about it. She didn’t talk as a rule, her secrets wearing away at her insides like acid.

Maybe it would be better to drain some of it. 

Tipping her head back she went on, “I thought I knew I knew whose lies I was telling, but I guess I can’t tell the difference anymore. Maybe I never could.”

“There’s a chance you might be in the wrong business.” 

Damn him, he smiled and she felt a little bit better. Meeting his gaze at last she felt herself sighing. 

“I owe you.” 

It was an uncomfortable feeling. Spies couldn’t have debts or ties or any of the things that characterised normal relationships. Steve Rogers was dangerously close to becoming a real friend and it scared her.

“It’s okay,” he shrugged, because of course he did. He wasn’t the kind to hold things over others, he was too good, too pure.

Too unlike her.

She’d twist any situation if she had to, use it as a weapon, a battering ram even. She’d cross every barrier to get what she’d wanted and never look back.

“If it was the other way around,” she heard herself ask, unable to keep from picking at the scab he’d formed in her conscience, perhaps the only proof that she had a conscience at all, “if it was down to me to save your life, be honest with me, would you trust me to do it?”

“I would now,” he patted her knee before hauling himself to his feet with a huff, “and I’m always honest.”

She didn’t know what that was like, but some small dangerous part of her wanted to find out.  
  


—-

_ His name was Soldier and he was awaiting his orders. _

The design of the house was a problem. The outside wall was made entirely of glass, every shadow beyond it becoming a potential threat. Sitting with his back to it was a test, a silent show of faith to his masters.

Perhaps they didn’t realise that he didn’t fear death like they did, that, after so long in and out of cryo, the idea of it was almost welcome to him. Death couldn’t be any colder than life was.

“Want some milk?” It wasn’t a real question so the soldier didn’t answer, waiting patiently at the table as his new master paced, “The timetable has moved. Our window is limited, two targets level six. They already cost me Zola. I want confirmed death in ten hours.”

He only nodded in reply, jaw tensing as the cleaning woman returned to interrupt them. Her eyes wide as she stammered out an excuse for being there.

He had managed to avoid her before, knowing how it would end if he didn’t. How it would end now. To see him was to see death after all, no one survived it any more.

His master took the shot, it was clumsy but effective, an inch to the right and half an inch up would have been cleaner. Or a head shot, that’s how he would have done it. Still, whether his new master was a marksman or not wasn’t the issue. The issue was the files being pushed across the table towards him.

The bleeding body on the floor was another casualty of war, he would block her face from his mind like he had done all of the others. So so many others.

“Are we clear?” His master said, expecting a response this time as he braced his hands on the kitchen table. Looking down at him like a stern parent with a misbehaving child.

“_Da, ser.” _ He confirmed, voice clipped as he was dismissed. Taking the files with him he left, he would have time to study them back at base.

The journey was short, the night air barely touching him as he whipped through the dark streets at the outskirts of the city. For the first time in a long time the thought occurred that he could just keep going, keep driving, but he didn’t.

Of course he didn’t.

His body wasn’t his own, moving on autopilot as he turned into the unused aircraft hanger. This was his base point for the mission, or, more specifically, the convoy of vehicles they kept inside was.

He was kept in an unmarked black van when he wasn’t needed, the insides outfitted with a flip down work station, a small fridge, a narrow bathroom and an even narrower bunk to sleep in. Every free inch of wall fitted with racks of weapons and the other necessities of his trade.

It was shut off from the cab in front, as much of an isolation chamber as the facility back in Siberia was. Only marginally less cold.

Handing his motorcycle off to the nearest person, he had taken two steps towards it before he was stopped by his current guard.

“Back already are you, got the mission?”

Rumlow. His name was Rumlow. He didn’t usually bother remembering them but he had this time. Rumlow was the best of the unit they had assigned to him, he didn’t speak to the soldier as if he was a dog. Or worse, speak over him like he wasn’t there at all.

“Confirmed,” he replied with a curt nod, “ten hour window.”

Rumlow whistled, “we better get on it then. I’ve got the boys scanning facial recognition and units on the street, but I reckon it will be at least four hours before we get any hits.”

“I’ll be ready to deploy.” He nodded, turning away.

“Always nice talking to ya, Soldge.”

_ Soldge. _A nickname. His first maybe, he didn’t know for sure but he didn’t think so. He had the feeling he’d had one before, something that had almost been a name sitting on the tip of his tongue as he shut himself away.

It was better to focus on the present, he had learnt from experience that the only thing waiting for him in the darkness of his past was pain. A mind numbing ache he strove to ignore as he settled at the worktop and opened the files he’d been given.

Facts. That’s what was important. Targets. Missions. _ Success._

Flicking through the files he felt his brow crease, it was rare that two omegas would warrant such a high threat level from his masters. They were not to be underestimated, the file said, but he didn’t need the reminder. He didn’t under or over estimate anyone, he simply did as he was told. It was easier that way.

Two targets. A man and a woman. He looked at the photos, memorizing their faces with practiced efficiency. He was tall, broad, and fair. She was slight, with red hair with fierce blue-green eyes.

Something about them unsettled him. The faces. The names. _ Steven Rogers. Natasha Romanoff. _ The walls drew tighter, sweat beading beneath his collar as he flipped through the documents. American. Russian. Ex-Military. Ex-KGB. Everything about them seemed to contrast each other but they would die the same.

Everyone did.

The ache at the back of his head intensified, pounding up from the base of his skull. White hot pain branched up through his temples, his muscles bunching as flashes of someone else’s life replaced the files in front of his eyes. 

He saw a fairground littered with trash and a gala lit by crystal chandeliers. The taste of cheap red meat and expensive champagne washing over his tongue.

And a scent. Cinnamon and something else. Something that _ called _ to him like a voice, begging him to come closer. To find its source and never let go.

Shuddering he slammed the folder shut, shoving the thoughts aside as he jerked up from the desk. He knew what he needed to, looking at the files any longer was a waste of resources. Better to sleep whilst he could, to conserve his energy for when the mission began in earnest.

Yes. Yes that was what he would do. Sleep and hope the pain didn’t chase him into the darkness.

Unsheathing his guns from their holsters he clicked them into place on the wall above his cot. Each where they belonged, each within easy reach. It was a familiar routine, he could remove and replace them within thirty seconds if he had too. 

The knives stayed where they were, as did his boots and clothes. His belt and it’s explosives locking into the space above his head incase they had to move him without notice. The world perfectly ordered as he set himself down in a bunk no wider than he was. His shoulders pressed against its high sides, the hard plastic sheets crinkling as he settled himself on top of them. Arms folded, legs straight, eyes closed.

Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff would die tomorrow. It was as good as done. 

_ Natasha_. 

Why did that name seem familiar to him and yet somehow wrong at the same time? He fell to sleep thinking about it, repeating it in his head like a lullaby. _ Natasha. Natasha. Nat. Natasha. Natalia. Natasha...  
  
_

—-  
  


The names followed him onto the battlefield, sitting tight behind his teeth as he eyed up his targets from the overpass. They looked different in reality, distant through the lenses of his goggles and yet somehow unbearably familiar. 

The low ache in the base of his skull awoke again, sleep had only temporarily dulled it it seemed. Now, in the open air with the mission in front of him, it returned with a vengeance.

He’d dreamt of them, at least he thought he had. A skinny boy with Steven Roger’s face and a woman who looked like Natasha Romanoff whispering secrets to him in a voice he could only imagine was hers.

Clenching his teeth he took the weapon handed to him, aiming it as he forced the thoughts back. There was no space for dreams here, no space for thought. There was only the mission.

He fired.

The explosion rocked the landscape, a jarring screech of metal and asphalt as the heavy scent of smoke filtered through his mask as the grenade burst. He knew they wouldn’t have died in the first blow, it was nothing more than an introduction.

A prelude to their deaths.

Targets like these would need wearing down, if he saw the shot he’d take it but he knew it was unlikely to be that easy. A gun was handed to him this time, his shoulders bracing as he scanned the chaos for his marks.

They were missing. He scanned the field, cataloging each shadow and-

_ Bang! _

The shot took him by surprise, jerking him back as it struck his arm. The metal dented, a few inches to the side and it would have struck his chest. He dodged as the next came at him, the movement dislodging his goggles as he ducked out of range.

The woman.

He narrowed in on her shining red hair and flashing eyes, stomach twisting as he shouldered his weapon. 

“_I have her,_” he bit out in Russian, “_find him._”

She was the more dangerous target, and he would take her out personally. 

Maybe then the pain in his head would stop.

—-

It was strange how things turned out. One moment they were successfully kidnapping a crooked Shield agent in broad daylight, the next they were thrust into the middle of a battle too long in the making.

No matter how many times Natasha had pictured the moment over the years she still wasn’t ready for it. Maybe she never would be. She’d imagined it so _ differently_, just him and her. No audience. No danger to anyone but herself.

She should have known better. Life was never that easy.

Now she had a team, _ friends _ almost, people who were depending on her to do her duty. To protect them. To save the day. She’d ended up on the side of the heroes, and heroes didn’t run shouting through the fight to beg their enemy to come back to them. No matter how deeply she wanted too.

That wasn’t how this worked.

This worked by dodging bullets and blows alike, by fighting. _ Surviving. _Wearing him down long enough that she could strike. Adrenaline choked her as she ducked behind a sedan, she had to outthink him, it was the only way she might win. She’d have to say something to the others, to tell them a sliver of the truth maybe. Or… or maybe when the fighting was done she could just spirit him away.

Steal him from the battlefield before anyone noticed.

Maybe she wasn’t a hero after all.

Breathing hard she pushed the thoughts of _ after _ aside, right now there was only the moment. Only _ this_. Praying to anyone who’d listen she set a trap for him by the edge of the road, knowing that distraction was key if she was going to get the edge she so desperately needed. Time to knock some sense into him.

_ Cognative recalibration._

That’s what she’d called it on the helicarrier all those months ago. It had worked on Clint when he was being mind controlled, hadn’t it? Was it really too much to hope it would work on Volk too? 

Her heart was so loud she could barely hear through it, thundering in her ears as she watched from the shadows as he fell into her web. He still moved the same, her chest aching at how familiar it was. The same heavy step, the same tilt of his head as he scanned the scene in search of his target. In search of _ her_. 

Even if it was to kill her. 

Silver fingers unclipped the bomb at the back of his belt, working smoothly as he rolled it beneath the car she’d set her phone behind. She counted down in her head, leaping as the blast struck and kicking his weapon free. Launching herself at his back and holding tight.

The garrotte. She dragged it from her bracer, muscles tense as she fought to choke him through the thick fabric of his uniform. His shoulders were hard beneath her thighs and for a split second the thin wire became red silk cord in her hands. A remnant of a bygone era.

It was the scent. It was messing with her head. So close she could taste it like copper on her tongue as he slammed her backwards into a car. Her spine groaned but she kicked up again anyway, maybe it was her training, maybe it as him, but fighting with Volk had always felt like dancing. A _ Pas de Deux _to a song only they knew the rhythm of.

Knowing he’d throw her as she sprung at him she turned the move against him, rolling into a _ battement tendu _ on instinct in an attempt to sweep his leg. He stumbled but didn’t fall, cold metal closing around her throat as he caught her on the upswing. 

Funny how history seemed determined to repeat itself.

“Really, Volk,” she gasped as his grip tightened. So close she could see the flecks of green in the centre of his eyes, “_this _ again?”

She arched her back, kicking up and hitting him square in the solar plexus. She’d learnt that trick after their first fight, when he had almost choked her to death in front of the Komandirs. He’d never pulled it off a second time.

He made a sound through the muzzle they’d forced on him, a growl maybe. A groan. The familiar noise threw her off balance for a split second, long enough for him to strike. Her heart lurched, weightless as he threw her across the road.

The crunch of metal and bone shook the music from her, reality filtering back in as she saw him reach for his gun. She didn’t stop to think, aiming a taser disk at his arm before she turned and ran. She needed to regroup, to attack from a different vantage.

The civilians were screaming around her, her voice hoarse as she yelled at them to clear the field. There were too many potential casualties here, too much collateral. She had to clear the road, had to save as many lives as she could. Not because she was a hero but because she knew he’d regret it if she didn’t when he came back to her. 

He’d never been comfortable with collateral, and if she could spare him this then she-

_ Crack._

Her heart stopped, a ragged gasp escaping her lungs as she fell.

_ —- _

The window was narrow, a momentary gap in her defence as the target darted between the abandoned cars, her eyes straying to the scene around her as he took his shot.

Was that why he’d missed his mark? Was it the rush?

Was it the way she had spoken to him like she knew him? How even when she was fighting for her life there was a softness behind the determination, a _ recognition._

He’d meant to aim for her heart, her head, a quick clean kill. Easily confirmed. Instead he’d hit the meat of her shoulder, a shot that would only be fatal if it went untreated for too long.

_ Why?_

Why had he missed?

Why did she sound exactly like she had in his dream when she’d spoken to him? 

The muscles in his jaw ached, teeth clenched hard behind his mask as he forced himself to follow her, gun raised for a second shot. To finish the job. He jumped to higher ground, hands tense as he met her gaze over the broken asphalt.

She knew she was going to die but she didn’t look scared, not like they usually did.

She looked _ disappointed. _

The other target was running at him, snatching his attention away before he could pull the trigger. He didn’t feel relieved, he couldn’t have. And if he did it was just because he could take them out easier this way, someone else could finish the woman or he could circle back to her after.

That was all.

Metal clashed against metal, ringing sharp through his skull as he hurled himself into the fight again. Adrenaline stung bitter against his tongue, heart beating out of time as he fired at the man. The bullets bounced off his shield like rain drops. Vibranium. Breathing hard he ducked as the man fought back, knocking the first gun from his hand, then the second. 

It wouldn’t be enough.

He couldn’t name them, not even in his thoughts, it was too dangerous. It made him slower. Even the scent of them wore at him, a thorn in his side he couldn’t shake loose. It made him feel unsettled.

It meant there would be more pain.

Twisting his body the soldier gave into his instincts, getting in blow after blow as he wrenched the shield from the man’s hand. The first rule was to follow orders. The second was if your enemy had better weapons than you, use them against them.

He struck out hard and true, the heavy disk missing by a hairsbreadth as he threw it and embedding itself deep into a van instead. Out of play. Fine. Gritting his teeth the soldier switched to a blade. Maybe it was better, this way he could make sure he didn’t miss.

The blows came thick and fast, no time to think. No time to feel. Only one strike then the next. The adrenaline notched higher with each hit he landed and each he took, the whir of his arm and the grunt of his enemy lost beneath the sound of his blood pounding in his ears.

Strike. Parry. Strike. Lunge. He almost had him, knife three inches from bright blue eyes he couldn’t look into, but it wasn’t enough. The man kicked back, knocking him away. The ache in his temples returned, pounding harder and harder as the shield came back in play. The man landed too many blows, over and over until he hurled the soldier away completely.

The soldier’s mask clattered to the floor, the air cold against his sweating skin as he grunted in pain. He turned, muscles shaking as he looked back at his target, knowing he’d given him enough time to take the final shot.

The man didn’t move. Frozen as he stared at him like he knew him.

“_Bucky?_” 

Another name. Another thorn sinking beneath his skin as he stared back at the familiar stranger. The ache became a roar, his brow furrowing despite himself as he glared back. 

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

He didn’t give the man a chance to answer, using his distraction against him instead. Like he’d been _ trained _ too. The gun fired but it was too late, the target’s ally had already knocked him out of the way. He recovered quickly, aiming again, but then the woman was there.

The one he’d shot. 

His own grenade launched past him, taking out a vehicle to his left. He didn’t understand why, she could have killed him. They both could have killed him…

It was too much, the pain in his temples threatening to swallow him whole as he stumbled backwards through the cloying smoke. He had to retreat. 

He had too.

It didn’t matter what they had called him, Bucky, Volk, his name was Soldier and he had failed his mission.


	10. The Agent & The Target

_   
Her name was Natasha and she had been caught by the enemy. _

Her, Steve, Sam; the three of them crowded into the back of a van and surrounded by enemies. It wasn’t exactly how she wanted the day to end.

The pain in her shoulder flared and faded with the beat of her heart, an unsteady rhythm as she hid the injury from the rest of the convoy. They didn’t need to know. They were busy. They were talking, she could hear it but the words were muddied, drifting in and out of focus like she was stuck beneath the surface of a pond and she didn’t have the strength to kick upwards

She tried to fight it, tried to focus even if it hurt. She needed to hear what they were saying, needed to catch hold of each piece of Volk’s lost past as it swam past her in the growing darkness. Of the life he’d lived before he met her, a wonderful life, at first at least.

He’d had friends, he’d had family. She was happy for him. She...

“It know it was him.” Steve was saying, pulling her back as the deep dragged at her. Head bobbing to the surface again as he looked down at his hands, “He looked right at me and he didn’t even know me.”

She’d never heard her own pain spoken so perfectly in someone else’s tongue. Her words in Steve’s voice. And yet all she could really think about was those old radio stations Volk had listened too, all the words he knew to songs she’d never heard of. He’d called her doll once on a mission in New York.

It made sense and it was completely bizarre. 

“How is that even possible?” Sam asked, he was a good fighter. Brave. She liked him, “It was like seventy years ago?”

Huh. Yeah. Well, she _ had _ always known Volk was older than her, she had just never realised by how much. She’d have had a field day with that if she’d known, so many missed opportunities...

“Zola.” Steve sighed, “Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43, Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall. They must have found him and…”

Bucky. His name was Bucky. James Buchanan Barnes. She wanted to say it out loud, to repeat it over and over again until it didn’t feel so weird in her mouth. So… _ wrong_. She didn’t know Bucky Barnes. She knew Volk.

How could they both have lost the same person in such different ways?

“None of this is your fault, Steve,” the words surprised her, slipping out as her head tipped back without her consent. The burning pain in her shoulder had numbed, it was a bad sign but she couldn’t bring herself to care, “it’s mine.”

All her fault. Over and over again.

“What-”

Steve didn’t finish the sentence, Sam was there first. His outline blurred as he turned himself towards her, her head slipping beneath the surface again.

“Hey - we need to get a doctor here,” he shouted through the waves, eyes fixed on her shoulder. The blood must have soaked through to her jacket, “We don't put pressure on that wound she's gonna bleed out here in the truck.”

The world spun, its edges jagged and cloud-soft at the same time as everything went into motion. Maria was there, attacking the guards, saving the day. Then they were beneath the road, painful reality seeping back into the edges, it was harder to let the water in when they were moving.

Which was probably a good thing.

It wasn’t until after she’d been patched up that she could think clearly again, even as her world shifted for the third time in as many days. Fury was alive. She half wanted to kill him herself for it, she’d barely begun to mourn him and he was back, emotional whiplash adding itself to her laundry list of aches and pains.

She understood though, knowing all too well the price of their profession. Even if it hurt that he hadn’t trusted her, she still understood.

She probably wouldn’t have trusted herself either.

Steve’s eyes never strayed far from her in the medical facility slash war room, glancing back again and again even as his mouth remained fixed in a firm line as they talked business. Always the soldier, even with his questions so loud behind his teeth he didn’t even need to open his mouth for her to hear them. 

She supposed it made sense, the world was ending again and it was up to them to save it. Hydra had spread like a cancer through every agency and government, secret and silent until now, finally ready to kill its host. It was all important, life changing stuff, even if it was obvious all she and Steve could think about was their shared stranger.

It was almost a relief when he cornered her in the hallway after they’d been dismissed, she was growing tired of the lies.

“What did you mean?” He asked as they headed towards the barracks to regroup before the final push, “why… why was it your fault? Bucky, I mean?”

“Volk,” she corrected him, taking an early left into an abandoned hallway. There were crates on the floor, dust lying thick on top of them. She didn’t care, sitting on one as she turned her face up to him.

“What?”

“I knew him as Volk.” She gestured to the seat opposite her, breathing out in a sigh as he perched awkwardly on the edge of it. An eagle in a rat’s nest, “before I joined Shield, back when… well, I was raised to do one thing Steve and only one thing, to further the cause. There was only the missions, only the next moment. I did what I was trained to do and I never looked beyond it. Then... I met him.”

_ “Him_?” He prompted, eyes so wide she was half worried they’d fall out of his head.

“Another operative.” She traced a star in the dust beside her, focusing on the pattern as the memories came rushing back to the surface. They never seemed far from her these days, “God, I was furious when they forced us together. I didn’t need an alpha to complete my missions, I thought I didn’t need anyone. I was wrong.” She shook her head, wiping the crate clean with the palm of her hand, “he wasn’t like any one I’d ever met before. He showed me there was more to life than I knew, more to me.”

“What happened?” Steve whispered, the words even more dangerous for their softness. She didn’t deserve softness from him.

“Our handlers found out we’d been compromised. They ensured it would never happen again, they made me think he was dead. When I found out he wasn’t…”

“Natasha, what are you telling me?”

She looked up at last, tasting her heart in her mouth as she gave him the last of her secrets.

“I’m telling you I knew him, not like you do, not as… as _ Bucky_,” the name sounded strange to her, she’d wanted to find it for so long but now that she had she couldn’t seem to make sense of it “he was _ Volk _ to me, and he… he was mine. We were each other’s, all we had. _ Mates_. I’ve been trying to find him ever since Odessa.”

“He tried to kill you.”

“A few times,” she said, shrugging, “but that’s love.”

“I didn’t think you’d let yourself love,” he said, shoulders slumping as he looked at her with pained understanding, “it’s not the spy way.”

“Maybe that’s why they broke us up,” she said, “maybe some things will always be more important than the mission. Either way, I swore I would get him back. And I will.”

She’d done enough wallowing, enough complaining. Fate had given her another chance and she’d be damned if she wouldn’t take it just because she’d stumbled this time.

What was the saying? Third time's the charm?

It didn’t matter. Not if it was the third or fourth or fifth hundred time. She would never give up, if it was the other way around she knew he never would. And even if things had changed, even if Bucky Barnes couldn’t love her like Volk had, it would be enough.

“_Together_,” Steve said, his hands bracing against her shoulders with such fervent determination she almost didn’t mind him jostling her wound, “we’ll get him back together. Bucky, Volk, we’ll save him.”

“And the rest of the world?” She asked, pulling his hand loose gently and rolling her shoulder. The shield-issue meds were good but not that good, she didn’t mind that either. Pain had always been a motivator in her life, a motivator she needed now more than ever.

Steve sighed, the shadow of a smile on his face as he drew back, “I guess we’ll just have to save that too.”

“I can see why he liked you,” hauling herself upright she offered him her un-damaged hand.

“You too,” he said, letting her help him to his feet, “he always had a thing for redheads.”

Selfishly, she hoped he still would.

  
  


—-

  
  


_ His name was… His name was..._

He didn’t know. Couldn’t keep his head in the present. There was too much noise. Too many images. The bone-numbing cold of fresh snow and fresher trauma. Red soaking white. A man laughing in the cheapest diner they could find. A woman fighting beside him like they were one soul separated into two bodies. Then darkness. Distant men with distant voices and _ pain. _So much pain.

He was the new fist of Hydra, remade from the inside out and then frozen in place.

“_Mission report_.”

The voice came from somewhere outside of himself but he couldn’t make sense of the words. Not with his head spinning and the scent of his target lingering in his throat. Cinnamon sweet and so familiar it made the backs of his eyes prick.

“_Mission report, now.”_

The slap came from nowhere, cutting through the noise in his head and slamming him back into the moment. Less pain than shock as he blinked in the harsh overhead lights.

“The man on the bridge…” he heard himself say, seeking his master's eyes, “Who was he?”

He knew him. He swore he did, the features muddled but familiar.

“You met him earlier this week on another assignment”

The soldier swallowed hard, Adam’s apple bobbing as he worked his teeth around his next words, “And the woman?”

_ Natasha. _ She couldn’t just be another assignment. He _ knew _ things about her. The way she fought, the way she spoke. He _ knew _the sound of her laughter even though he’d never heard it, the taste of her skin…

“A target.” His master snapped, patience wearing thin. It was a dangerous sign flashing neon in front of him but he couldn’t bring himself to stop. Too lost in the images, the bittersweet pain of the unknown pulling him deeper with every breath.

“I knew them,” he heard himself say, voice small in his own ears as he looked up at last, desperate for answers.

His master didn’t answer immediately, something painfully like hope catching in the soldier’s chest as his face softened. The man leant down, voice quiet and understanding as he spoke.

“Your work has been a gift to mankind, you have _ shaped _ the century. I just need you to do it one more time.” Not an answer, _ never _ an answer, “Society is on the tipping point of order and chaos and tomorrow morning we’re gonna give it a push. But if you don’t do your part I can’t do mine, and Hydra can’t give the world the freedom it _ deserves_.”

The words rolled over him, tar thick and meaningless. Order. Chaos. Hydra. They were abstracts. The people had been real, the pain in his head was _ real._

He looked up, knowing the price his words would exact, the pain that would follow, but unable to keep them in anyway. He had to say it.

“But I _ knew _ them.”

His master's eyes turned cold, lip curling as he turned away.

“Prep him.”  
  


—-

_ She’d had so many names over the years she couldn’t remember half of them. But the world would, they would know all her secrets with the press of a button. _

They were stood in the uppermost level of the facility, the action playing out below them. So far away it might have been a different world.

Somewhere down there Steve and Sam we’re saving the world, somewhere down there Volk was trying to stop them. It hurt more than any number of bullets to not be there with them, to _ trust _ Steve with something far more precious than her own life, but _ his._

The decision had been a struggle, the deaths of thousands, _ millions, _ on the line and she was still torn by her own selfish desire to be the one to bring Volk back. But then that’s who she was. She was imperfect. She was a killer and a liar and a thief, she was a lover and a fighter and, _ very _ occasionally, a hero.

“Are you sure you’re ready for the world to see you as you really are?” Pierce face was set in smug superiority, looking at he like he could see all her flaws and failures.

“Are you?” She asked, hand reaching for the button that what change everything. 

Because she was. The good and bad, and it was mostly bad. Overwhelmingly _ horrifically _ bad. But she didn’t care anymore, she was ready to be more than a mask, more than the lies.

No matter who she was when the dust had settled and the chips had fallen it would be better than this. She didn’t want to end up like Fury. Like _ Grandmother_. She would take her own path, do what she had to and she would _ trust._

It was time to find out who Natasha Romonaff, who _ Natalia Alianova Romonova, _ really was.

—-

_ His handlers told him he had no name. The man on the bridge said differently. _

The soldier swallowed stiffly, he had fallen. Crumpled against the glass bottom of the ship as it lifted ever upwards. An unforgivable weakness he had to shake with the scent of cinnamon and uncertainty. The target had spat lies at him, stories of friendship, of a past, of a red headed woman he felt like he knew.

The words followed him when he fell, chasing him into the darkness. He didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious, only that the voice in his head had been shaken by it. Bits of him breaking loose as he lifted his gun, aiming through gritted teeth as the pieces scratched at his consciousness.

This was _ the _ mission, the only one that mattered. If he failed here he would have failed everything and everyone, there would be no more Hydra. No more him. This was the moment of reckoning.

He fired, stomach twisting as he shot his target. Clinging to his mission as the world fell apart beneath him. It would stop the pain, it _ had _ to stop the pain.

_ You were sloppy with that second shot, Volk, _a voice like warm silk teased him. Phantom hands reaching over his steadying him for a split second before he was knocked back again into the darkness. 

He came back to himself to find the world exploding around him. Pinned down, the weight of a metal girder crushing the breath from his lungs as he struggled for breath. The man was there. The man that said he knew him, that he knew _ her_. Natasha. 

He called the phantom Natasha.

“You know me.”

“No I don’t.” He struggled loose, torn between backing away and pushing forward. Panting hard as he stared across at his enemy.

“Bucky, you’ve known me your whole life.”

That name again. It cut into him, a sharp shard of glass that had him moving on instinct. Attacking like he was supposed too even as the world crumbled around them.

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes,” the man gasped.

He answered with another swing, another hit, growling between clenched teeth as he struck again.

“Shut up.”

_ Thump._

“Natasha called you Volk.”

He saw her, red hair and flushed cheeks as she lay back in the sheets. Her hand playing against her collarbone as she whispered to him.

_ I’d get a wolf right here. One with your eyes in the winter snow, moy Volk._

Hers. Her wolf. Her Volk. Her...

“_Shut up.” _He heard himself roar, no longer in control of himself as he swung and struck.

“I’m not going to fight you,” the man whispered as the soldier caught him by the throat, “you’re my friend. You’re her _ mate_.”

“You’re my mission.” There was heat behind his eyes, burning in his skull like a flame as he spat the words out in time with hammering of his fists into flesh, “You’re my _ mission_.”

He had to stop. Had to kill. He had to… had to...

“Then finish it.” The man whispered, “Because I’m with you to the end of the line.”

They were falling. The soldier’s stomach lurched, snow that wasn’t there stinging his eyes as gravity snatched at him. An all too familiar fall he felt he’d been reliving for a life time even if he hadn’t realised it until now.

For a moment Hydra ceased to exist as he knew it. The mission. The moment. It was all gone. He was another man in another time, falling somewhere else, his every thought fixed on someone else.

On his best friend.

It didn’t matter that he was going to die, only that Steve would survive. That his death would be enough to save him.

When he dragged himself from the water it was as a three different people at once. His head spinning as he clutched onto his target, his friend. The _ stranger. _He couldn’t think anymore, everything jagged and jumbled in his head, shaken up by the memory of a man he called friend and the memory of a woman he couldn’t forget. Of a thousand good bad mission, blood and life and loss.

He left his target on the shore line, adrenaline and stagnant water filling his mouth as he did the only thing he knew how to anymore. Bones aching, head pounding, he fell into old instincts and muscle memories once more.

He ran.

—-

She had signed the note from ‘_a friend_,’ giving it to Clint to deliver to Steve along with all the research she’d accrued over the years. Files she had flipped through so many times she’d memorised them, amazed the ink hadn’t worn off the pages with how often she’d read them.

The powers that be had wanted her to go to Capitol Hill to face the consequences of the downfall of Shield but there were others who could do that now, she’d put off her own life for too long already. She told Steve as much in the short letter she’d left, thanking him and apologising in equal measures. She knew he was going to search as well but she couldn’t wait. Not this time.

She couldn’t do things _ his _ way, or anyone else’s.

It was time to find him on her own terms, no oversight, no outer help or hands. Just her, her heart, and all the things she was willing to do that she knew Steve Rogers wouldn’t approve of.

Maybe Bucky Barnes wouldn’t approve of it either, but she wouldn’t know until she’d met him. Determined to find out exactly how much of her mate was left beneath his skin.

He had run, so she would chase. 

  
  
  
  



	11. The Nameless

_  
He didn’t know what his name was, but he knew her. _

He froze, rooted to the spot as he found her waiting inside of the apartment he’d rented.

It was snowing outside, the first of the season. The light faded and grey as it washed over her, a familiar outline, her red hair clipped away from her face and her hand pressed to the window. Fog bloomed around her fingertips where they met the glass, warm against the cold.

“This building,” she said, eyes fixed on the city beyond as she spoke with a voice he’d heard in his head for longer than he realised, “I remember the last time we were here.”

He shuffled further into the room, dumping his shopping bag onto the kitchen table in the vague hope it would cover up the files sprawled over it. History books and newspaper articles, not to mention the well thumbed photos of her he’d clipped out like coupons.

Fragments of past lives he’d been trying to glue back together inside of himself like pictures to a board. Some of it had been easier than others. 

_She_ had.

She sparked like a match in his skull, a half forgotten dream that was suddenly realer than anything in his life had ever been. Her face attached to well of feelings he had never truly lost, only temporarily boarded up.

“We were on the roof, listening to the radio while we waited for a target” she turned her face to him, a ghost of a smile lifting the corner of her mouth as soft green eyes met his, “you said you loved me and I… I didn’t say it back.”

His chest tightened, a physical pain as if someone had wrapped a fist around his heart and squeezed. 

“You didn’t have to.”

Her head shot up, eyes widening as she turned to face him fully. He breathed her in. The scent that had been haunting his sleep for weeks filling his lungs at last.

“_Volk.” _ Her voice broke on the name, _ his _ name, “Do you…”

“Nat,” the words came out hoarse, his hands shaking as he clenched them by his sides, wanting to touch her. To hold her. To _ run. _“Your name is Natalia, you were...”

“Yours,” she said, taking a hesitant step towards him, searching his gaze with a familiarity that hurt in the sweetest way, “I would have stayed. I need you to know that, I would have stayed with… _ them. _If I knew you were there I would have stayed until I found you. But they made me think you were...”

He remembered the fight on the highway. He remembered Odessa. The shock on her face. The weight of the gun as he’d pulled the trigger. Guilt crushed him as he matched her steps without meaning too. Caught in a gravity he had been fighting for years without knowing its source.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” he murmured, “I’m glad you got away.”

If anyone deserved too it was her. She had been controlled as much as he had, moulded from a child into their sick image. She deserved her freedom from it.

She deserved so much more than he had ever given her.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered, utterly insubstantial words. Clumsy and weak in the face of his betrayals.

“Why?” A furrow formed between her brows, “I was the one that-”

“I shot you.” The words left him a low growl of disbelief as they met in the centre of the room, “_twice.”_

He could still see the blood spilling out of her, black in the moonlight as she lay at the bottom of the cliff. The disappointment in her eyes when he’d shot her on the road. The _ pain._

“Don’t let it go to your head,” she huffed out a breath, voice teasing and understanding in turn, “I still would have won if we were playing by the same rules. Besides, it wasn’t your fault.”

“I should have remembered you,” he couldn’t look at her anymore. He didn’t deserve too. “I should have never hurt you.”

Soft fingers fluttered against his face, hesitant as she drew his gaze back to hers.

“You didn’t hurt me,” she whispered, “not in any way that matters. Do you… Do you remember me now?”

“Yes,” he whispered, barely able to breath through the tightness in his chest. Alive only in the places her skin touched his, “I remember all of it.”

“And did I do the right thing coming here?” She asked, unbearably unsure as she pulled her hand slowly away from him, “did you want me to find you?”

Heat surged beneath his skin, unable to keep himself from her any longer as he grabbed her hand. Pressing his lips her palm, kissing it fiercely as he tasted her again. 

“Yes,” it came out low and harsh, almost feral as he pressed into her touch, “It's why I came here. After everything... I… I started to look for you too.”

“You did?” Surprise coloured her features, a spark of delight that made his chest ache. How could she think he would have done anything else? 

She was his magnet, and no matter what his crimes against her were he couldn’t stay away.

“I just didn’t do it as well as you.”

“Well,” light sparked in her eyes, her gaze turning teasing, “I was always the better intelligence operative.”

He huffed out a laugh, the sound surprising him as he ran his fingers through her hair. Lost in the feeling, “_London_.”

“London,” she agreed, “and Moscow.”

So many missions. How could the happiest of his memories be tainted by so much blood too?

“Nat… the things we did…” He bit his lip, trying to read her thoughts even as he struggled with his own.

“We did what we had to,” her hands dropped to his waist, curling beneath his coat against his ribs, warmth in the cold, “we _ survived _.”

He kissed her then, something in him breaking at the fierce words. He needed her. He’d _ always _ needed her. 

She was the best part of him.

—-

_ Her name didn’t matter when she had the familiar weight of his mouth on hers._

He had grown rougher over the years, his kiss harsher and yet somehow infinitely more tender. It felt _ right_, the empty space inside of her filling up with him until she thought she might drown in the sensation. A perfect death. The only one she could ever imagine for herself.

“_Volk,” _she whispered against his lips when they parted for air at last, unable to bear even the slightest space between them, “I mean… can I still call you that? Would you prefer…?”

“Volk,” he nodded, kissing her again, quick and harsh, “or… or _ James _. Not… the other one.”

Her heart bled for him, knowing all to well the pain of having too many ill fitting pieces inside of you. How hard it was to reassemble yourself after they’d broken you.

“I called you James once before,” she murmured, remembering the London rain and the way he’d struggled in it. The reaction to his code name making so much more sense now, “I think you almost remembered then.”

“The further back I go the less clear it gets,” he leant his forehead against hers with a heavy sigh, “The man from the… _ bridge_, is he…?”

“He’s looking for you too,” she turned her face into his, slipping her hand further beneath his coat in search of his heartbeat as heat pricked behind her eyes, “Did you want me to call him?”

Squeezing her eyes shut she tried to calm the storm in her chest. All too aware of her own selfishness again, of how much she wanted to stay in this moment with him alone. She’d seen the books on his table, the headlines with her name in them, the Captain America biographies. A jumbled mess of everyone he’d been.

For this moment she just wanted him to be hers.

“No,” his hands tensed against her shoulders, drawing her tighter still,“not yet. I’m not ready yet.”

She shouldn’t be relieved but she was. Dizzy with gratitude as she opened her eyes again, pulling back to look at him properly.

Now she was finally here, with _ him, _there were things that needed saying. Things she had promised herself she’d say for years.

“I read the articles too you know,” she confessed, heart racing harder than any battle she’d ever been in, “You’ve always been a hero, Volk… _ James... _ and… and I know _ he _ was your best friend, but you were my first friend. The first person in the world who showed me that there might be something beyond the Red Room, that I might be more than what they made me. I love you. I’m just sorry I never said it before.”

“You never needed too,” he whispered, fingers coiling in her hair as he pulled her back to him. Kissing her again with a tenderness that shook her to the core, “I always knew. Are you going to take me back now? To your handlers?”

“No,” she breathed, shaking her head, “I have had enough of handlers and causes and _ lies _ for a while. I just want you, if you…”

“Always,” he said fiercely, her heart swelling in her chest until she feared it might break from the pressure, “I will always want you, Natalia. No matter what name they call me.”

“We never really needed names did we?” she said, winding her arms around his neck with a hiccupy little laugh. They’d had so many over the years. Shared some. Lost others. And none of them mattered now.

All that mattered was this, here, _ them. _Nameless lovers in a world of their own making.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hoped you enjoyed the story! Thanks again to Juuls and Evie for requesting this story, DenseHumboldt for pre-reading it and giving me all the courage and praise I needed to keep writing, and MTH for creating such a wonderful event for the fandom to give back with!
> 
> As always if you did like it a comment, no matter how small, would be greatly appreciated! Thanks loves! 💜


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